Deal! Fortune! In bed!
by Negative-Z
Summary: COMPLETE! Rin has at least five broad daylight encounters to look forward to. Maybe six, maybe seven total, for luck. You're lucky, aren't you Rin?   update: Can you explain how I have more people favoriting this than people reviewing it?
1. Chapter 1: Friends of Friends

The Anime series "Shuffle" is brought to us by Funimation, not me. I do not profit financially from this.

[Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

[Note:] I detest any story that begins with an apology, with some exception to late installments. The final chapters are late, but this is a naughty fanfiction and the bottom of any barrel is already the sorriest part. I'm sorry that I haven't written fanfiction for almost a decade. Or rather, I'm sorry I've kept track because I'll soon be at the age where ff is creepy rather than silly. I won't wonder if I feel creepy or silly doing this because I'm doing this to change.

[Side Note:] See website link in profile for a review of the original series.

Prologue: Masculinity Issues

Rin lived surrounded by royalty and modern Japan. The arcades sold cats and the school uniforms defied gravity. Well, no, that's not accurate. The arcades sold a chance to win a _toy_ cat, and the school uniforms _demanded_ gravity. "Royalty" is the right term, though, because Rin had the king of Gods and his daughter living next door on one side, the king of Devils and his daughter on the other. He also lived in a modern _suburb_ and, whenever things seemed like they couldn't be worse, he thanked heaven (and hell just in case) that he didn't live in a bustling, bouncing, bursting metropolis. The stories about nice guys thrown into city life make him turn red, sometimes white.

Devils and Gods had been immigrating into the human world for a little more than a generation now. They'd integrated so well, in fact, that the controversy of whether to refer to them as "Devils" or "Gods" or "people from the world of…" already seemed silly. Maybe people in Rin's world adapted better because they started public school only after they could read and write, leading many of them to already be legal adults by the time they reached high school. That's probably not an important detail, though.

The only otherworldly debate Rin had been pulled into was over ears. Some of his peers really liked the long ears the Gods had, others really really liked the really REALLY long Devil ears. Whenever pressed for what he favored in any girl, Rin liked to consider himself "not picky."

Of course you're not picky, you've got a whole damn harem to pick from. Asshole.

Rin would insist that only people who'd never had half a dozen girls vying for their love would call it a blessing. In all fairness to his upbringing, both of Rin's parents were killed in car cash when he was a little boy. No, not his genitals, just his parents, but still.

Which brings us to Kaede, a childhood friend and arguably the first lady in his life. The same crash that killed both his parents also killed her mother. In the aftermath, Kaede's father took Rin under his wing. Kaede's father isn't around much. (He's a good man, a good provider, but he's probably the only guy in town with more masculinity issues than Rin. Let's give him a break, leave him out of this, and hope he's enjoying his business trip.) After her own…adjustment period, Kaede also began taking care of little orphan Rin. Is she more like a maid, or a big sister? You might get more than two answers to that question.

Kaede has shoulder-length sunny orange hair and is as sweet as she is cute, which is to say her very existence has started a capital "Pee-yourself" Psychotic fan club. It might be more accurate to call them a gang when they try to prove their adoration by murdering Rin in broad daylight. These types of fan-gangs usually aren't too quick, or too sharp, but Rin's school chums also do their part to make up for Kaede's coddling.

His buddy, Itsuki, can sometimes seem more like his nemesis. As a wing man, let's call him an anti-Cupid. An arrogant womanizer determined to bring out the beast in Rin, Itsuki could only be worse if he were a model academic who looked good in glasses, which he is. He can even take a punch, which he does, but his nature vs. nurture debate will stay beside the point until he either makes a withdrawal from Rin's harem, or a deposit.

Mayumi makes for an interesting equal and opposite to Itsuki as the self-appointed energetic queen of gossip and tiny breasts. She doesn't have half of Itsuki's academic talent, but certainly has twice the sense of romantic justice. Everyone's seen her fan-service hair style, short with long sections on each side, but it looks oddly girl-next-door in grayish green. She doesn't blame her looks (Who wouldn't love a left blue and right magenta eye?) on being half-devil, but she does bemoan her inability to use magic.

Yes, people from the other worlds are genetically compatible with humans. Yes, they can use magic. We could talk about the magic and mingling, but that would make it difficult to talk about Rin's older friends in the next sentence, so let's just say that it means more than long ears.

Yes, Rin also attracts senior students. Lock up your daughters, mothers, and pets just to be safe.

Fuck you, Rin.

Asa is another childhood friend who isn't very good at hiding her attraction to Rin, even in plain sight. With spring green hair, cut in a one-sided variation of Mayumi's, she might be a gorgeous girl made cute by bold, almost tomboyish behavior, or a cute girl made gorgeous by the same. She'll knock you off your feet, one way or the other. If that sounds too complicated, just ogle her BFF Kareha, a bubbly, buxom blonde from the world of Gods. Her people are polygamous, as she's keen to remind us, so she'd probably chase Rin more seriously if she wasn't so optimistic, or if she took anything seriously…other than love.

Still sounds complicated? Let's brings things back home then.

Ma-ou seems a little too effete to rule the world of Devils, and Shin-ou a little too boorish to command the Gods.

"What about the queens?"

Do you want this to be more confusing?

Just know that these big daddies both love their princesses so much that they'll take up human world homes on either side of Rin. The heir apparent daughters to otherworldly powers both met Rin as children on separate occasions and fell in love. The heir apparent daughters are both so gorgeous that there are now three psychotic fan clubs out for Rin's blood.

The princess of the Gods, Sia, has a long proper name that sounds Greek and contagious, long burgundy hair, and a cheerful, active personality. Opposite her, shy and reflective, is Nerine. The princess of the Devils has really long bluish-purple hair and really, REALLY large…ears. Nerine's eccentric little cousin of sorts followed the lot of them into Rin's town, then into his home. This gives Kaede another person to take care of and Rin a Lolita complex to suppress alongside a harem instinct. Any well-balanced person could see Primula adding more fuel to the emotional fires, but forcing Primula back home wouldn't really be sane.

You want to disappoint her? You want to look Primula in that blankly innocent face, with those wild lavender-gray pig tales, and tell her no? Go ahead. I dare you.

Does it matter whether any or all of these young ladies is the perfect match for Rin? No. Does it matter that royalty from the other worlds seem to have noticeably more problems with magic overflow? That depends on who you ask. Was this whole scenario dreamed up as an excuse for yet another barely legal orgy? No. There are important philosophical and personal questions to consider here. If it just so happens that a celestial alignment traversing the God and Devil worlds might send a cascade of sexual energy into the human world, then everyone will just have to deal with it the best they can.

Won't they, Rin?

Chapter 1: Friends of Friends

"_Now for our next story. Some people live the philosophy that 'Life…is study.'" _

The smarmy infotainment jockey on the TV didn't smooth the café's clamor, but Rin had tried studying in peace and it hadn't worked. There was always a chance that you could do something wrong your entire life, so why not take a chance to mix things up. He'd chewed on this thought as he left the quiet bedroom where he had studied all his life. It sounded like something Asa would say, really, and being alone in public was just as likely to make him depressed as focused.

"_If life is study," the talking head continued, "not a cabaret, not even a parade, then are educators under even more pressure than they themselves can comprehend?"_

Rin had selected the location for seeming off the radar and hopefully the homing instincts of certain female students. Stealth means nothing to Luck, of course, and Luck had sent the biggest gossip he knew to take his order. He could just imagine Asa teasing him when Kareha (a friend of Asa's and a part time waitress ((fulltime uniform fetishist)) at who knew how many _other_ places) told her, as she surely would, that Rin had "taken himself on a date." The phrase stuck after the fifth time Kareha asked why he would meet a date in such a place. Rin was determined to focus on his studies without being rude to her, but he was beginning to wish he knew her well enough to tell her off.

"_Maybe a certain professor of astronomy at the local college could shed some starlight on this question."_

Rin refocused his annoyance at the anchorman, whose enthusiasm was clearly wasted on the aging café patrons.

"So, Rin…are you really studying, or did you just need some time away from your harem?"

Kareha giggled. All the time. Always so girlishly that he could never really be annoyed, but almost always at some scandalous innuendo.

"No, Kareha. And no I don't have a harem. I have exams. I was trying to find a distracting, but not too distracting place to study because I couldn't concentrate in my room and-"

"_The professor, who for legal reasons must remain nameless, was said to be examining a star that he claimed was actually approaching our system. It was only after missing three of his lectures that anyone thought to check on him. He was found in the campus planetarium in a near-coma after what witnesses described as a 'days-long masturbation marathon.'"_

The anchor tried, and mostly succeeded, to hide how personally and professionally ecstatic this made him. Rin tried, and mostly failed, not to spit his coffee all over his notes. For their part, the other café patrons shifted, clinked, and even gasped like the living. As if such a story on a semi-serious news station wasn't shocking enough, Rin glanced over at Kareha to find her frozen, not with giggling glee, but with intense, almost fearful concentration.

"Mr. Manager, sir, will you please turn up the volume on the TV?"

The manager twitched and used the remote without taking his eyes off the screen.

"_As scandal is rare at this university, and as the incident involved no other students or faculty, save the colleague who called the paramedics, the dean has tried to keep the incident quiet. We at Raccoon-Balls News do not intend to disrupt the education of our country's future leaders, but recognize the importance of knowing when something so…inexplicable and, if I may, inexcusable occurs within their midst. More on this as the story develops. Next up, do oysters really have the special properties so many attest to, and-"_

"IDIOT! What constellation was he looking at?"

Kareha's merciless command stole the looks of disbelief away from the TV. Rin braced himself in the booth so desperately that a little more coffee slipped onto his notes. Kareha changed her expression just as forcefully.

"Oh my my my! Thank goodness I don't attend that college. Tee-hee!"

The patrons grumbled, chuckled and returned to themselves in unison.

Kareha put her coffee pot down on Rin's notes, wiped the sputtered coffee off the seat across from him, and sat down. She watched her hands wrestle each other for information as Rin looked for the real Kareha somewhere else in the cafe.

"It couldn't be…it's only a legend…even if-"

To Rin's young and quasi-experienced perceptions, it almost looked as if the hushed mumbles and squeaks spilling out of her were a kind of coquettish token resistance to her own thoughts.

"Kareha, what the hell was that all about?"

"Hm?" She met Rin's disbelief with a suddenly innocent and oblivious smirk.

A gut-wrenching fear he hadn't felt since he'd been simultaneously targeted by the most desirable women in two (maybe three) worlds made another appearance, this time a little bit lower in Rin's system.

"Kareha, do the Gods have something to do with that professor? Do the devils?"

"Little Rin, whatever are you talking about?"

"Do _I_ look that helpless when I try to laugh off a question," Rin asked the both of them under his breath.

"You heard the newsman. That professor was all alone."

"What I heard is you being serious about it. I've never seen you serious about anything."

Kareha gave him a sly smile, then put her hands in her lap, squeezing her shoulders and other parts closer together. "Now Rin, you haven't really seen much of me, have you?"

The fear, curiosity, and humor drained from his face. "Nevermind."

Rin had learned, probably enough for a lifetime, not to give an inch to this kind of conversation. He resumed studying with a new intensity.

"Okay, Rin, I admit this might be something…something-"

"I said 'nevermind,' Kareha. Please take the coffee pot off my notes."

She topped off his mug and put the pot back where it had been.

"It could just be a coincidence that some pervy old teacher got caught with his pants down."

It was unnerving to hear the lighthearted, if immature girl use such slang, but Rin refused, flat out refused to take the bait.

"Actually, Rin, in your situation, it might be safer if you did know." Kareha was shifting in her seat now, as if she had to use the restroom, or-

No. Rin would not take the bait. He would drink his coffee quietly.

"You see, the stars in the world of the Gods are…different."

"What do you mean 'different'? What about the world of the Devils?"

Rin closed his eyes and cursed himself for asking reasonable questions about what was sure to be a ridiculous story, especially if it were true.

"No one really knows how much the stars and planets impact people in the human world, and usually the same can be said about the others."

Rin glanced up, quickly, but a glance was all it took to see that Kareha might actually be struggling with something both very serious and overly mature.

"When I started to," Kareha let off a few steamy giggles, "you know, grow up, my mother told me about the Lemon star."

Rin told himself not to ask what the Lemon star was. He even tried not to think about anything colorful and moved the coffee pot off his notes himself. Without looking away from the divine and scandalous space just above his head, Kareha picked the pot up, topped off his mug, and put the pot down on another of his school books.

"Oh my my my! She told me it last happened ages and ages ago to her great grandmother…but- Oh my my my!"

Whenever Kareha got especially excited about something she was known throughout the school to enter a kind of magical trance where she literally glowed and sparkled. This made friends uncomfortable because they knew what it usually meant and others uncomfortable because they could guess.

"This is your last break tonight, Kareha," the manager grumbled, "and would you please try not to…do that."

Kareha made an unladylike noise somewhere in her pink face and tried to clear her throat with dignity. She closed her eyes and sat up straight.

"The Lemon star is said to exist in multiple places at once and to have such an unpredictable orbit that it's almost impossible to know when it's going to align until it's too late."

"Too late?"

Too late. Kareha caught him looking up from his notes, beamed some kind of forbidden triumph, then lowered her head. Rin could tell that she was biting her lip. Hard. He didn't care. Heaven and Hell help him, he had to not care. He tried to crank up the volume of the voice in his head reading math notes.

Rin felt the table shift as Kareha leaned closer and felt the hairs stand up on…essentially everything…at a growing change in Kareha's voice.

"Supposedly it ended a war between the Gods and cured a plague in the land of the Devils long ago. Some people even say it happens all the time but no one notices…or wants to bring it up."

He tried to imagine the historical events in his own notes, the captains and statesmen shouting at him to honor their legacy. They were reciting their achievements when smooth, graceful hands started snaking their way over their broad shoulders and-

Rin reached for his science book.

Kareha grabbed his hand in both of hers.

"Can you feel anything Rin?" Her fingers were soft and very warm over his. Her voice was amused but very sincere.

"You mean besides your hands?" Rin tried to strike the conversation down with a deadpan.

"If that astronomer was looking at the Lemon star with his telescope then…oh my my my!"

Kareha tightened her grip, and was about to light up again when Rin, out of reflex as much as bravery, leaned forward with his other hand and knocked on Kareha's forehead like a tax-collector at a thick door.

"Hello-oh! Kareha? Anybody in there who cares if I fail the exam or not?"

Kareha blinked rapidly and looked around, remembering where she was. Rin sighed gruffly back at his notes.

"You can't really be thinking of homework at a time like this? The star's conjunction is supposed to…bring people closer together," Kareha actually tried to calm herself with a quick breath, "but in your case there could be real trouble."

Rin began to recite some of the periodic table out loud, then louder as Kareha continued.

"If everyone who-wants you-suddenly wanted you-ten times as much. Think about it."

Rin thought about it. Even though she was nearly whispering, and he was nearly yelling over her, she was still twice as loud in his head. Rin thought about it.

"It might not even affect the human world unless they look through that telescope, but it could just as easily drive everyone near it…everyone in the country…everyone in the human world-"

"Kareha! I told you to knock it off, or at least take your boyfriend and do it outside!"

Rin looked fearfully over at the manager and was about to assure him that he was nobody's boyfriend when Kareha caught him by the shirt and pulled his ear next to her lips.

"How many wives do you think you could satisfy in one night, Rin?"

She sounded eager for him to show her. For real. She might not be playing the popular make-Rin-uncomfortable game, but she let him go before he could ask, or plead. When he looked back at her she was considering her hands as they considered each other. Again Kareha looked very bashful but very eager for something. This time, though, her fingers moved more slowly, more gracefully, and she used her nails.

"Sometime I wish I…wonder if I…w-wish-wonder if I could blame my first-"

Rin gave her a very blank, very disbelieving (not in her, but in his situation) stare, and stated, as clearly as he could:

"Kareha, I need to study. Please let me study. I'm going to ignore you now."

He really believed he could do it this time. Mr. Rin would be a man, a hard worker. He would ignore the silly girl oozing flirt frosting all over the place and focus on his exams. She could go on about whatever naughty stuff she wanted and it would all blend into the café's background noise.

"I can't believe I'm telling you this, but I think I'm the only student I know who isn't technically a virgin."

Rin stopped redrawing an equation he almost knew by heart. He closed his eyes and took a very slow, very quiet breath through his nose. This was not the time to speak, or to listen, only to study. Life was study.

"I don't know if I'm embarrassed that I was so young…or that I liked it so much."

The lines from his favorite mechanical pencil became darker, but didn't stop.

"Oh Rin, I barely know you…what you must think of me."

Rin was thinking that she was saying what she thought she was supposed to. No. No, he was thinking about how to work this equation.

"But it was so wonderful, even if we _were_ under the influence of the Lemon star."

Somewhere, out of the brawl in Rin's brain, a voice spoke calmly and clearly, telling him to stop her. Stop her, Rin, because she will regret spilling such a personal can of beans. It was the voice of the Right Thing to Do, there was no mistaking it. There was no analyzing it either; when all the jokes and bothers were through, Rin absolutely had to be a good person.

Kareha wiggled absently out of one shoe. The stocking was slightly loose at the toes, so Rin felt that first as she moved her foot up Rin's bare calf and into his cargo shorts.

Somewhere, at one end of the brawl in Rin's brain, a door opened and the Right Thing to Do stepped out for a smoke. It would still be watching through the greasy windows, so Rin would at least, at the very least, try to keep ignoring her.

"He wasn't that much older than me, I don't think. He didn't have his own place or anything, but it couldn't have been the first time for him. He was too good at it. He's probably bent over some lucky lady's toes right now."

Kareha wiggled her own and Rin shivered.

_Wait…toes?_

Rin's thought was so incredulous that it might have defused the situation, if the situation were that kind of bomb.

"You see, Rin, my first job was in a shipping store. The owner never kept the same schedule twice, and sometimes I'd have to run the whole place by myself. There was only one other employee, but he worked different hours so we only saw each other in passing. Still, we always said hello and goodbye for just a little longer than we had to."

Kareha giggled and shimmied her foot a little bit farther up Rin's leg.

Rin switched back to history. As Kareha's story continued, he continued bending closer and closer to the book till it was all he could see.

"He was from a far away country and looked different from everyone. My God-world ears seemed almost normal compared with his short, tight hair, his dark…dark skin…his big, juicy lips…"

Rin braced himself for whatever might happen when Kareha lit up while tiptoeing him so delicately. She didn't light up, and she moved her foot away. Before Rin could be grateful, though, she wiggled her toes into the pit of his knee and made a satisfied sigh that was as inappropriate as anything she'd said so far.

"When the holiday season came around, we both had to work longer shifts and one day we were left alone in the store together. The manager left for lunch and insisted that we close the shop and take lunch at the same time. We'd both brought our own and went to eat together in the stock room."

Rin noticed that she was speaking, and breathing, more rapidly, but he didn't notice anything else, not a word of how some idiot had left two hormonal teenagers alone together.

"It really wasn't very polite of me to take my shoes off while we were trying to eat, but I was breaking in new shoes and we'd both been running around all day and-"

She started breathing more heavily, then gradually seemed to be calming herself down.

"You really are ignoring me, aren't you, Rin?"

Rin told himself not to try to show her he was ignoring her. That would be stupid, stupid like these overblown obituaries. Stupid history exam. He switched chapters.

"I'm sorry, but if I don't tell someone about this I'll just explode. This guy, he looked so concerned when I complained that my feet were killing me. I pulled off my socks…I-I wasn't trying to be sexy about it or anything, really…and I took some lotion out of my purse and-and all of a sudden he was there, taking the lotion out of my hand. I was startled, but I just looked at him, and he just smiled, and he was so handsome and he just mumbled something about how you can't get the right angle doing it to yourself."

Kareha was moving her foot up his leg again, wiggling her toes. It didn't tickle. It felt really good, but that didn't matter because Rin almost had the history of whatever he was reading memorized for whatever reason he was memorizing it.

"He just started massaging my feet as if it were the most normal thing to do for someone you barely knew…and oh…oh MY…it felt so good I didn't say anything. After a few seconds I just laid back on the bench we'd been sitting on and…and I think I said something about how I'd give him a year to stop. He said I should take better care of such treasures. I don't know what I said, but I know he started using more force and I let out a sigh or a moan and he-he…"

Rin looked over at the notes he was copying. They looked like something from one of those machines that predict earthquakes. History was full of earthquakes. History was important.

"I think he told me that I, that my feet, they deserved special care. EXTRA special care. I couldn't believe it, but he started to use his mouth and-"

The table shook a little as Kareha gripped its edges and slid her foot so far forward that the tiny fold of stocking at the end of her toes tickled something it should not be tickling. Rin trembled. He was not thinking about history. He was listening very close to a very deep and heavy whisper.

"It felt SO good, Rin. It felt so good that I couldn't talk, so I just tried to caress his ear with my other foot. I felt it everywhere in my body. I…I wanted him to do what he was doing everywhere on my body. I pictured how we must have looked, and it was beautiful. I started to hold my legs in place so that I didn't accidentally kick him or something. Then-then I started to touch myself all over and touch myself down there and I wanted him to-but I suddenly-I must have had an-"

The coffee mug, the coffee pot, and a few other condiments tipped over as Rin broke his mechanical pencil against the table. Pieces shot past his head and landed somewhere on the café floor. Rin looked at his hand and the damage around it. His coffee was cascading into the booth. The pot had only completely ruined maybe a third of his history notes. The café attendants were all watching the TV intently and mumbling to each other as they watched a police chase.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry, sir! I'll be back with a towel." Kareha jumped up, applied her already moist dish towel to the table, then hobbled quickly back into the kitchen, her other shoe still under the table.

Rin stood up, and calmly put his books in his backpack, some money next to the overturned coffee mug, and his feet out the door. Somewhere along the line he'd thought to clutch what was left of his history notes in one hand. This way they wouldn't stain his other notes. It was important to preserve his notes. He had exams to study for. Exams were important. He would have to find a different place to study. Kareha was not a good study partner. Kareha was a freaky foot-fetishist.

As he walked home, Rin's thoughts became more cohesive. They orbited the image of a girl on a table, skirt up, toes in the mouth of some exotic pagan masculinity icon, but at least his thoughts were cohesive thoughts. At least he could change which girl was on the table. Gradually the trade off time increased till the table stayed bare.

There was no such thing as a Lemon star. Stars didn't really affect people anyway. The girls in his life were sweet, and lovely and just a little sillier than usual, so the right thing was to be a good friend. No, the Right Thing to Do was to acknowledge that they believed they were in love with him and so he'd better not toy with their emotions even if they were too immature to be real.

The Right Thing to Do was to greet the two men outside his home courteously. There was no reason to let his nervousness make him rude. The kings of the God and Devil worlds had been eager to impress themselves on him for a while now. They were probably just exercising another routine in encouraging him to study with their own daughter.

"Good evening, Rin."

"May we have a word, please?"

The two kings spoke in tandem, but almost as one. It made Rin recall a science class where he learned about liquid nitrogen, and another where he learned about the earth's core.

"Good evening, your highness. Um, your highness."

Rin bowed to one king, then the other. Maybe he should have bowed extra low to the king of the Gods. It was one of his subjects he'd treated so dishonorably, after all.

"Can you spare a moment?"

The king of the Gods knew. He always seemed so carefree and encouraging, but he was terrifying now and it must be because he was going to kill Rin in some way the girls' fan clubs could only dream of.

"Of course you will-I mean-I mean of course I can."

Rin bowed again, directly between them, just in case. He thought about how vulnerable this made him. That was the point of the gesture, though, right? He hadn't done anything wrong.

The king of the Devil world stepped forward, arms crossed, eyes on Rin and everything inside him.

"Rin, tell me what you know about astronomy."

[Note:] More chapters coming. Rin has at least five more encounters to look forward to. Maybe six, so as to make it seven total, for luck.

You're lucky, aren't you Rin?


	2. Chapter 2: Pandora's Periodical

The Anime series "Shuffle" is brought to us by Funimation, not me. I do not profit financially from this. The line between dirty and filthy is clear but the line between naughty and just dirty always seemed dotted. Cold water reviews welcome.

[Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

[Side Note:] See website link in profile for a review of the original series.

Chapter 2: Pandora's Periodical

It made perfect sense, really. Sleep poorly, and the dreams made from those scraps of REM will have to go for broke. It made as much sense as those dreams being dominated by the very things that were keeping him up. Rin had no reason to be alarmed if he had to wake up to escape a frenzy of blatantly sexualized angel halos and devil pitchforks. It was okay for him to be unsettled, it was okay for him to be a little sweaty, but he was awake now and it was just OK. Maybe if he went right back to sleep he might even be able to repair the damage.

His subconscious had woken him up, so now it was up to his conscious to get him unconscious again. Unfortunately his conscious and his conscience were both vying for the lullaby microphone and making feedback.

The whole world devolving into an insane orgy might not seem such a terrifying prospect to most people, maybe not even to Rin himself. The prospect had become a possibility, though, and the possibility came with a warning from two fathers who were also kings and also deities.

They'd always seemed so good-natured, jovial even. They didn't throw their unknowable power around like most authority figures he knew. After the near-catastrophe they'd survived bringing Primula's magic under control, Rin almost flattered himself to think they shared some man-to-man respect.

Rin supposed it had been as respectful as possible when the king of the world of Devils had promised, in no uncertain terms, that if his daughter was mistreated:

"I will personally keep you alive for however long it takes you to properly regret it."

No malice in his voice, but anything could be lurking in that lean demon frame.

Always equal and opposite, the king of the world of Gods had kept his eyes closed, head down, and arms folded. He sounded grave rather than threatening, as if he feared his wrath as much as anyone else should.

"Sia…my daughter…has a pure spirit. I will do what I must to honor that spirit."

The conversation had clearly started and ended on the same note, but their attempt to explain the excuse that wouldn't be, the Lemon Star, was more difficult to recall. They'd begun with the story of the truce between Gods and Devils. Apparently two ancient kings, their people having been enemies for longer than the oldest record, experienced the same epiphany one night.

It was common knowledge that the three worlds shared the same space, that they were separated by dimension rather than distance. Knowing this, but never considering it, the two kings were (according to both accounts) comparing the star charts…no, not comparing, Rin remembered. They both knew that their worlds shared the same constellations, but their seasons and astrology differed so much the point seemed moot.

Both monarchs, in a tangle of various maps, had each selected a star chart for their own purpose, and proceeded to plot points. They realized, after some minutes, that they'd been using a chart from the opposing world. Unlikely as it sounded in any world, the two kings both experienced an empathetic epiphany, a diplomatic compulsion, and sent an envoy to the other. The accounts differed, however, on whether those envoys met on the same road and fought to a draw, fell in love, or realized they both shared the same human mother.

Rin remembered a brief moment of levity when the two kings smirked at each other and acknowledged that neither world was truly certain which had been the first to make contact with humanity. He also remembered now, with a confused frown, how quickly they'd changed the subject. He'd wanted to ask why no one knew anything about inter-world contact before the official one on record.

That was pointless wondering, Rin figured, rolling his face further into his pillow and willing himself to relax. Forcing peace was silly, even for a contradiction, but worth a try.

Somehow trying to relax again became trying to remember.

The leaders of the two worlds had moved forward with shared optimism to create not just a statue, but an actual star as a symbol of unity. Space travel was easy with magic, apparently, but space was still so vast that the most powerful of them couldn't be spared to potentially travel forever. Not until the inter-world treaty, that is. Under the new terms a team of powerful Gods and Devils set forth to construct and set forth on a magical ship. They were to visit the nearest star and place the new one in the same vicinity.

The King of the Gods had said, as an aside, and as much to himself as to Rin, that if everything worked out the three of them could go to the museums celebrating this grand undertaking. The Devil king simply repeated the word 'if' to Rin and Rin alone.

Everything about the project went without incident…officially. No one was supposed to know that the expedition did find one thing apart from a vast, lifeless void.

They'd come across a third star where only two were about to be. It was also artificial, but not like their own in any other way. They'd been discussing whether to classify it as a star or a comet, but most of the data recorded by the crew was lost because, on the way back, for approximately a day, the Gods and Devils on that ship…

Both kings had paused their exchange of interjection then, and looked at each other. Their faces were as serious as ever, but there was also an unmistakable blush.

Rin let it be when they settled with 'became uncontrollably amorous.'

Other details were fuzzier. For instance, how the surface of the star was supposedly like the skin of a fruit, or how all people in high positions of government must have a plan should it ever come within close enough orbit to radiate its influence.

There were as many inconclusive documents as there were conclusive myths about how many times the star had made a strange day of the God and Devil worlds. There was no evidence, however, one way or the other, to hint if the human world had ever been affected, or if Gods and Devils could be affected while in the human world. The planetarium incident was the clearest warning they'd ever had.

The only thing for the two Patriarchs to do was make it clear that Rin's gentlemanly resolve had better burn brighter than an ancient alien artificial sun.

Maybe if he tried some meditation he could go back to sleep. Maybe he could just spend the weekend in bed, play sick with something very contagious. Hiding might really be his only option if obsession led to conspiracy; he'd begun to suspect, following what he'd learned about the two princesses' other selves, that a more…diplomatic crush could actually be more dangerous.

Before last night's ominous study session, he'd already begun to imagine wild romantic back room negotiations. If the girls in his life were also as loyal friends as he knew them to be, they might actually be concocting some kind of symbiotic yet ultimately predatory plan to get him, or get him gotten by one of them, at least.

No, that was silly. Rin smiled and closed his eyes.

Maybe all the Gods and Devils were working together to make some kind of giant, light-sucking, chastity-belt-black-hole between earth and this star. That thought was silly, too, as was a chastity black belt. But as he lay on his back, stretching his toes at some out of reach relaxation, Rin realized that silly thoughts were easier to dismiss. He also noticed that he didn't feel any different. He didn't _feel_ influenced by any heavenly bodies. The world seemed quiet. The house seemed quiet. The kitty's paw steps were quiet as it searched for a place to snuggle on top of his blanket.

Did they get Primula a real cat?

Rin considered the question hazily.

They had not, but before he realized this he wondered why the cat seemed so large. After that he realized that cats kissed with rough tongues, not soft lips.

Rin opened his eyes quickly, but took too long by any standard to recognize Primula. Her hair was out and about, making her tightly closed eyes seem even more intense.

"What the-?"

Rin jerked back, up and, most importantly, away. His head thumped against the wall, the headboard dug into his spine, the tears began welling up, but he didn't complain. There were worse things. Unforgivable violations and brutal prison death, for instance.

"I woke up the sleeping prince."

It was the sweetest, most innocent thing when Primula smiled, but this was a bit sweeter and a bit less innocent.

"P-pri-mu-rim-chan-pri-lu-mu…" Rin didn't know whether to scream or whisper, and trying to do both hurt his throat. The very young lady, the very VERY young lady, just smiled. He'd never heard her laugh, but he could sense an impossibly cute little giggle coming up like a flesh-melting geyser. She didn't make a sound though, she just fell forward, wrapping her arms tightly around him and nuzzling his ribs.

"I had such a nice dream, Rin."

"Primula!" His gulping hiss sounded inhuman at best, but it didn't deter his heroic princess.

"I dreamed that you were rescuing me from that scary place where I was trapped."

Rin glanced about desperately for…what? For assistance? For a witness? For a very gentle crowbar?

"But then," Primula's small mumble almost lost itself in Rin's shirt, "we both grew wings and flew up into the clouds. We were playing and…"

Primula hugged him tighter.

"Sto-!"

Rin caught himself before he bellowed at the top of his lungs. Something like 'Rin feels warm' purred up at him.

"Primula, you have to understand, people your age…they're not supposed to-"

At this the tiny body relaxed and sat up with the usual blank and even more blessedly innocent expression.

"But people do it on the TV, and when I woke up people were doing it outside."

Primula pointed at the window, still looking into his eyes.

She had a lot to look at; Rin could feel his retina twang like a bowstring. He could also feel a tiny bead of sweat yawn awake above his left eye and a mangy rodent prepare breakfast somewhere in his guts. A voice too clever for heaven and too clean for hell spoke to his mind through the ethers:

_Good morning, Rin. Rise and shine._

It was instinct that grabbed Primula firmly by the shoulders, instinct that lifted them both out of bed in one movement and set her on her feet while he flew to the window. Years and years later, as an old man, Rin would tell people that he really did fly, just a little, but pure wingless flight just the same.

The curtains wailed like the windswept skirts of shy girls and the late morning sun blazed in like a spiritual epiphany. It may as well have been an epiphany for all that it consumed him. By the time Rin could process what he was seeing he couldn't see part of it for his breath on the glass.

There were four backs out there, but only two people. Up against a fence, a utility man was holding a plainly dressed yet radiant woman as if she were an angel he refused to let return to the heavens. If he kissed her enough, clutched her tightly in the right places, surely the gods would let her stay. They had their clothes on, and would have been quiet if the fence hadn't been so old.

The same could not be said for the scandal across the street. It was scandal, after all, the real and true definition. There really had never been one in town before, not to share space in Infamy with this. Rin was no forensic investigator, but it looked as if a car had hit a light post, killing the battery. As a solution, either the two passengers, or the driver and a helpful bystander, were trying to revive the car with kinetic energy. If they'd thought to use electrical cables, it might have worked, Rin imagined. One of them began using the fallen light post for extra leverage and Rin tried to stop imagining. Why add fuel to the fire, the sun, the frickinlemonstaroh…

"HOLY FUCKING HELL!"

"Is that what they're doing, Rin?"

Primula hadn't been scared by the outburst, or maybe her attention was also helplessly frozen to the spectacle outside.

"Primula…" Rin's teeth hurt with the force of the calming breath he scraped from the air.

The young, young-young-young-young girl just stepped closer to the window.

Rin swung his hand in front of her eyes so quickly that she started.

"Primula! Listen to me now. There is…something…unhealthy! Something unhealthy in the air today! You need to promise me you'll stay inside and not look out the windows, okay?"

"But why?" She asked with a tiny head tilt. Rin moved his hand diagonally to keep it over her eyes.

"Please. Primula, please do me this favor. You haven't done anything wrong…well, except for…but the important thing is that everything should be fine tomorrow. You just have to keep away from the outside and from any strangers and-"

"You're acting strange, Rin."

"Primula, if you can just do this for me I promise I'll give you whatever you want."

Rin blinked for a long time, breathing a little more evenly, but then, under his hand, he saw Primula smile that smile again that she never should have smiled in the first place.

"NO KISSES!"

That one had actually taken Rin aback. It had sounded like a horrible old hag declaring the rule to everyone for the rest of time. Primula only slouched a little, frowned a little more, and began walking out of his room with a tiny "ok."

It broke his heart, but relieved his immortal soul or the Right Thing to Do or whatever else he hoped he still had by the end of the day. Though, so far, it could have been much worse. Really. Maybe it wasn't that bad. Maybe he just needed a good breakfast in him to-

"Kaede!"

Rin gasped the life back into his chest as Primula turned curiously back toward him.

"Primula, where's Kaede?"

"She's downstairs making breakfast."

Rin bent forward, letting the sigh of relief take him where it would, which was not far.

"Wait…she isn't…acting strangely…she's…"

Rin gulped.

Primula blinked.

"What, uh, what is she wearing today?"

"She's wearing an apron."

"Oh good!"

The sigh took Rin a little farther this time but, and he will deny it to this day, the thought of Kaede in nothing but an apron gave him a sudden and very vacant grin.

"Wait, don't tell me-"

Rin felt himself weakening. He'd never fainted before in his life, but he was almost ready to, almost ready to escape however he could.

"Kaede says it's important to put an apron over your clothes any time you're about to cook."

"Over…over your clothes…of course. Tell her I'll be down in a few minutes, okay Primula?"

"Okay." She seemed little-cheered, but that was enough for Rin.

He sat on his bed and rested his head in his hands.

Maybe he should lock himself in his room, bolt it from both sides, just in case.

No. The time, the effort, it might just get him worked up and he needed to be calm.

Rin collapsed backward, miscalculated, and bounced off his bed to the floor.

He didn't cry out, or even mumble; he didn't deserve to. From his lowly perspective, however, he could see a sideways beam of salvation that looked just like a box of magazines. One, only one, of these magazines was not like the others. Itsuki had given it to him on the premise that he keep it safe. The real reason, of course, was that any healthy man might, according to Itsuki, need occasional private assistance.

It might, Rin thought with a suddenly dry mouth, be just the thing he needed. If he…various analogies involving weapons, gardening tools, and gym equipment flooded his mind. He imagined himself draining a dam before a storm. That was responsible. That was okay. He wasn't a pervert; he was realistic.

"If I jerk myself like a monkey till I'm empty I won't go crazy with some star-struck beast-boner…"

Rin had mumbled it to himself, but it rang in his ears so painfully that his eyes welled up with self-pity. His movements toward the magazine became more and more like a foul mouthed child sent to find the soap.

The box probably wasn't as heavy as it felt as he dragged it out, but he still imagined a stone sealing an ancient arcane tomb. The magazines crinkled sickly as he piled them to the side. Except for one, of course; that one was still quiet and discreet in its black plastic.

Black had never been such an ominous color. He might have to use his imagination alone and throw this away, far away, without opening it. Itsuki was definitely the type to give him blunt, dirty porn. He was also the type to provide something that reestablished Japan's rep. as the most perverted nation in the world. Rin recalled a story about a lady and a tiger, but this time the tiger might have tentacles. The Right Thing to Do sounded oddly high-pitched for a change:

_Burn it, Rin! Burn it and bury the ashes!_

Rin's own mind spoke with typical uncertainty:

_How bad could it be? Really. Itsuki's a creep, but he's not a creep-creep._

With simple reassurance:

_At the worst, at the very worst, it's going to be full of men. Big men._

With blunt reasoning:

_Itsuki is my friend, so he worries about me. He probably picked something tame. It might even seem too tame after getting so worked up._

With unusual tolerance:

…_I AM a healthy guy, right?_

With an odd urgency:

_A little precaution today could save my life._

With nothing else to offer, The Right Thing to Do responded:

…_You could end up like that guy in the planetarium._

The thought of Kaede finding him in such a state, of Primula finding him like that after she'd-

The thought formed well enough to send the magazine flying across the room. The thought formed more completely and sent Rin across the room to pick it up, open the window, and toss it out as far as he could. He even took the extra consideration to make sure he threw it like a Frisbee instead of a football, but he didn't aim. Pandora's periodical hit a pedestrian in the back of the head.

The car had limped away and the fence was silent. The street around this person was quiet now, appropriately inappropriately quiet around a short man, alone, in a trench coat…on a warm morning. The man rubbed his head, looked around, picked up the magazine, looked around again, and opened the wrapping. After a few page turns he looked around more urgently, tucked it under his arm, and walked. By the time he was out of site he seemed to be jogging.

Rin hung his head and collapsed back onto his bed a little more carefully this time.

The posture wasn't very comfortable, but the sun felt nice through the open curtains. The sun was warm, not hot. The sun was warm, not bright, more like a blanket than a lamp. Rin couldn't help but laugh at his situation. Laughing felt good. His skin felt good. His muscles felt good. His junk was feeling more valuable by the second.

It was nice, sighing and chuckling at the same time. Rin smiled and ran his hands through his hair. He sat up and thought of his teacher. She didn't normally wear glasses. She didn't normally give extra credit, either.

The neighborhood was quiet except for the birds. The birds sounded so sweet and happy compared to his teacher and her dirty, dirty mouth. She was still so gentle, though. A bird would probably eat from her hand. Anyone would. The sun felt good and looked just as good on her skin. The sunshine would feel better if he sat up straighter, better yet if he gave himself some more air. His teacher's hand would be more gentle than his own, and probably warmer.

Kaede's apron, probably from being near the stove, was almost as warm on his back as the sun was on his chest. Her hand joining his was as sweet and gentle as a breeze through fresh blossoms. The sudden knot of fear in his throat froze him more like stone than ice. He was still warm. They were both so warm.

"Let me…let me help you, Rin."

Kaede's breath tickled his ear and he shivered, then shivered again. His knees in his hands felt at once too hard and not sturdy enough. He gulped, gasped, opened his eyes, and closed them tightly.

"It's okay, Rin. Everybody already thinks I help you…with everything, b-but no one has to know. I won't tell anyone…if you don't want me to."

Small voices shouted on the foggy shores of his mind like distant seagulls. How Kaede had managed to sneak up on him, how Rin could make her stop; these questions all sank, or drifted out on the tides of a vast hot spring. All Rin could manage was the ghost of Kaede's name, dissipated into steam through his teeth.

Some line, toe-traced through the sand, disappeared under foam. The space in his head the Right Thing used to patrol was being renovated into a garden, a fountain rimmed with dancing nymphs. Panic was close enough to excitement that the questions easily morphed from anxious to curious. He wouldn't let himself remember, but Rin definitely wondered then whether all good cooks, with their skillful hands, had this talent.

In one hungry movement, Kaede licked her hand, wrist to fingertip, and continued more confidently. Her neck pressed into his shoulder, her breasts into his back. She gulped and he felt it against his collar bone. She gritted her teeth for half a moment and he felt it everywhere. Those slender tendons, the soft bit beneath her chin, Rin had noticed that area just the other day. It had to be so soft that, if he actually touched it with his hand-

Rin gripped the bed. There was nothing keeping him there, nothing he couldn't deflect with little more than a shrug, but her neck…why her neck? Her hand felt better, and then better still, so delicate, so… but her neck was pure. No one could touch her neck, her throat, that vital, vulnerable area. She leaned in closer and swallowed again. Her neck. Her hand. Kaede was an angel. Nothing real could be so soft.

"It's okay, Rin. I want to help you. It feels good, doesn't it?"

Her breath, at once hushed and heavier, touched his own neck and he bent forward with a gasp framed by a helpless smile. Kaede's breasts shifted slightly.

"Let it…let it go. Let me-"

Rin knew, not bothering to wonder, not able to judge, that Kaede was touching herself with her other hand. She drew a very deep breath, slowing the hand on him. She kept drawing it steadily even as two quick little gasps tumbled out of Rin.

Kaede was an angel. Everything she did was caring, caring for herself only so that he could be cared for. It was ok, it was good that she did this, it was good that she let herself feel it too. The sun didn't feel different, it must be, but it didn't feel different. It was warm and beautiful. This was warm and beautiful and felt so very good. It felt better and better and yes, wonderful. Yes. Yes, the sunlight felt good, the sharp and tightening breaths between them were good. They were good. Even if they regretted today no regret could kill now.

Rin let it go. A rush of pins, a stampede of fallen-asleep feet ran out from his body into the entire world. He nearly collapsed to the side, holding on with one elbow and half a hand. Kaede fell with him, her neck still on his shoulder, her hand still on him. Explosive, impossible sensation still flooded through her touch. Again, he knew, without needing to wonder, that she was close behind him.

Her neck tensed as she made a tiny, unbelieving noise, her muscles hot and vital beneath that stainless skin. Ragged gasps passed over him, up and into the sunshine. Kaede relaxed her grip, but her hand, her arm, her whole body hesitated. Rin didn't know what to do, either. Should they hold each other now? Should they go about their day with the same normal polite distance? The Right Thing To Do was in the fountain, trying to shut it off…or scavenging change. The nymphs giggled and the fountain bubbled. The nymphs giggled and splashed each other, play fighting between Seppuku for letting a perfect being sully herself, and charging outside to celebrate the sharing of pleasure in the light of day. The more his mind fought, however, the weaker his body became, and going back to sleep seemed a better and better compromise.

"Oh no! What have I done?"

Kaede was upset. Rin had to do something fast. He had to climb out of this blissful peach pink tar pit and reassure, and apologize, and board up the windows and at least mumble something.

Rin mumbled something. He didn't know what.

"How careless. I'll take care of it, Rin."

Kaede was upset, but not lost innocence upset, not even burnt dinner upset. She was kneeling down across from him, wiping at the wall and floor with her apron. Rin thought he heard her mumble something about club soda.

A half-delirious surge of chivalry stood Rin up, closed his pants, and spoke for him in as casual a voice as there never was: "Don't worry, Kaede, I'll go get some soap and towels."

Rin turned on his heel and marched toward the door. His thoughts were flimsy prayers caught between Primula missing the whole event and Kaede forgetting it. Maybe he'd survive today and even tomorrow. He'd find the cleaner and make a joke of this. Sure. The cleaner could be anywhere, but he'd find it…but maybe too late. Rin turned back and forced a laugh.

"Where is the cleaning stuff, anyway?"

She didn't answer, but Rin knew he had to hurry. Kaede shouldn't be cleaning up his shame with her apron, especially when it was all she had to wear.


	3. Chapter 3: Mr Wet Cat

The Anime series "Shuffle" is brought to us by Funimation, not me. I do not profit financially from this. The line between dirty and filthy is clear but the line between naughty and just dirty always seemed dotted. Cold water reviews welcome.

[Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

[Side Note:] See website link in profile for a review of the original series.

Chapter 3: Mr. Wet Cat

Once, when Rin was a very little boy, his mother took a broom to him. It was just a playful exaggeration to get him out of the house, but he'd moved very quickly. His mother knew children needed fresh air, but Rin knew his mother sometimes needed the entire house to cry bleach. Kaede had been terrified the first time she saw him exploding out the front door with tears in his eyes. He'd laughed louder to reassure her that everything was funny, not sad.

When Rin exploded out the front door this morning, he was trying not to cry because everything should be funny, but it wasn't. Everything definitely wasn't clean, either. He'd hollered something about not having time for breakfast from the laundry room, where he'd selected the cleanest-looking outfit in the hamper. He'd hollered the same kind of something about having errands to take care of while Kaede tried to holler something back from upstairs. Primula gave him a curious look, which he'd returned with a grimace between a shrug and a shriek as he wiggled into both shoes at the same time, holding onto the door handle for dear life.

She would help Kaede clean and wouldn't know what she was cleaning. Kaede wouldn't tell her and the whole unspeakable thing would actually be unspeakable when he returned. Cowardice could be an art and all art was beautiful on some level.

Rin skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust and burst self-justifying thought bubble.

When _was_ he going to return? Midnight? Seasonal Gift-Giver Day? Where would he go? He wasn't running from a jealous fan club, he was running from his own home, his own-

"Oh! Good morning, young man."

Outside the gate to the human home of the God king, Eustoma, a woman was waving her fan in his favor. Not the King's favor. Rin's. Rin the cowardly peasant. The woman was obviously from the land of the Gods and more obviously from a noble background. She wore a beautiful, yet strikingly modern (or rather outright otherworldly) kimono. The garment's geometric cascade of warm colors seemed to clash purposefully with the simple pastoral scene on her fan. The knot of her obi was tied with such a feminine touch that it bounced with every round thing about her.

The woman was actually Sia, but Sia actually harbored a… "less refined" …personality inside her. Rin tensed, ready to run in any direction before he could imagine what Sia-as-Kikiyo might be like on a day like this.

The woman was actually not Sia, or the unborn, merged, manic twin princess of the Gods.

Rin realized it just looked a lot like her, but was too perceptive (for a change) to be relieved. He mouthed his thoughts silently with a slackening jaw:

_No. It couldn't be…_

"You must be Rin. My daughter has told me so much about you. I feel terrible that it has taken this long for us to meet. She really is _quite_ impressed with you."

Fan to her face, her eyes flashed with more testing intensity than any human grin. Rin didn't really understand what an old dojo teacher had meant when he said:

"_An opponent who will not chase you is an opponent you cannot run from." _

But Rin whispered it to himself for courage as he took a step forward.

"Good morning, your highness."

Rin tried to bow too deeply to be moved from the spot, but when he stood he found he couldn't take his eyes off the movement of her fan. He felt more like a bird entranced by a snake's tongue than a cat entranced by a bird.

"I was hoping to surprise my husband. It was such an ordeal to get someone to take over my royal duties, thus I am so very anxious to see him…and my daughter, of course."

"I'll bet," Rin mumbled helplessly.

"You see, good sir, I have knocked, and yet it seems they cannot hear me. I could shout to them, but that would give away the surprise, not to mention that it would not be very proper."

She inclined her head with a blush so gracefully, so very gracefully, that Rin thought he could imagine what good Sake tasted like. The traditional style Japanese beauties had never done much for him before, but he could see now that they simply hadn't been doing it right. To work the charms of a true noblewoman required something elegant, something sensuous rather than merely glamorous.

Rin had to help her, and be so damn respectful it hurt. That was the Right Thing to Do. He approached, the very picture of chivalry from someone copying it from a history book. History was important.

"Please miss, allow me. Sia says I'm welcome to make myself at home anytime."

Rin bowed again and realized his mistake the moment he saw the ground.

"Oh, is that so?"

"That is …I-her father is teaching me to play chess as well."

"He's a calculating one, that's for certain," the noble woman glanced at the house, speaking under her breath in what couldn't have been a grumble.

In a movement that slowed his reflexes rather than enhance her own, she put her arm through his. Rin tensed, waiting for her to press her breasts into his elbow. She didn't, so Rin had to exhale his relief for twice as long.

There was no turning back now, but there was also no hope of remembering which door was the main one. Sia's father had ordered a very traditional and very classy home, but that made it difficult to remember where the appropriate entrance would be as there was an entrance and a formal garden on every side.

"Lead the way, Lord Rin, sir."

She didn't move closer to him as they approached the house, but he did feel their proximity change in some other than mother way. Rin began to look toward her to apologize (and maybe free himself) for not being familiar enough with the house.

"Oh! I have an idea. Why don't I hide off to the side while you knock on the door there. Then when they open it I can really surprise them."

Rin chuckled uncomfortably but was thankful that she had at least taken the lead. He swallowed and hopped that it looked like a nod.

"I am at your service, my lady."

The pronouncement was hardly noble, and Rin worried that he sounded mocking rather than nervous. Small relief then, when his escort glided away from him, so graceful now that she really did seem to float and so graceful that floating didn't seem odd. A vision snuck into his mind, a not The Right Thing to Think vision, of his teacher, all jealous and pouty and cute now that his Oedipus complex had advanced. Rin gritted his teeth till it went away. The Queen didn't seem to notice as she gestured for him to ring the bell.

"Who in the-? One moment, please."

Sia's father sounded agitated. The plan started to sound safer if he were the one to hide.

Eustoma opened the door roughly, but without much force. It looked like he had not slept for days. At the sight of his visitor he scrapped up some fumes from the furnace, seeming worried rather than angry.

"Rin! Er…don't you think it might be better if-" Eustoma looked over his shoulder, "if-if you, you know, stayed home today. I can't go into detail but I think this whole-"

"Darling!"

It was obvious where Sia had learned that even the king of Gods could be toppled with the right technique. The large figure crumbled under the tiny tsunami of giggles and increasingly intimate caresses. Eustoma struggled to his knees, then his feet, his special guest still around his neck. She loosened only when he held her by the waist at arm's length to get a better look.

"It can't be! My little pudding flower! Is it really you?"

Rin could barely keep up with the few seconds of contact it took to rejuvenate the weary king. Eustoma swung his wife around in joyous circles. Her dainty feet knocked a lamp onto the floor and a vase against the wall, but the couple gave them no more notice than someone else's dandelion wish. The crash made Rin instinctively cover his head, then look around for Sia or anything else that might make this all more awkward. Maybe he could just be on his way. Maybe pigs could fly, without magic even.

"I take it you've met Sia's mother, then! I was wondering when she'd finally get to see our human home! HA!" Eustoma's bombastic laugh shook the room and a very loose smile out of Rin.

Now firmly cuddly-backed onto his shoulders, Pudding Flower nuzzled her cheek into her husband's. Their combined blushes were like a candyman alchemy, transmutating crème and caramel into cinnamon. Rin couldn't see the surprisingly agile woman's legs, or the King's hands for that matter.

"Oh darling, however did you stay warm during the long, cold nights they have here?"

The king grinned, blushed more deeply, and stuttered as the question brought one delicate hand under his chin, the other down his chest. Rin was now quite ready to excuse himself when those Goddess eyes welded him to the spot.

"Rin, my husband can be so oblivious to a woman's schemes. He probably hasn't been an especially challenging chaperone, has he?"

The Right Way to Laugh would be innocently, as if Rin had no idea what she was implying. The laugh that came made him sound like he was being tickled by something that hadn't been cute for a long time. Eustoma sounded equally if oppositely uncomfortable.

"P-p-pudding, Sia hasn't seen you in such a long time. I'm sure she'd be…happy…to…"

Eustoma trailed off as his inquisitor made inquiry into his ear with the tip of her tongue. She began whispering something that made all the blood rush to the king's face. All the blood in the world, maybe.

_No_, Rin realized, _there was some blood left for another place._

_No._

_No way!_

Rin's jaw collapsed in an expression so helpless he could feel the shock echo in his ears.

A delighted, yet almost sinister giggle erupted atop the royal volcano.

"My my! That's certainly one way to show the boy who's in charge. Maybe we shouldn't call Sia out here just yet. I'm sure she'll be just as happy to see me after we've had some time to catch up on grownup things."

Rin had seen the king drunk before, he'd seen the king utterly wasted before, but he'd never seen him look so brain-dead. When he heard the king laugh to himself he worried the damage might be permanent.

"Flowers…heh heh…pudding…hee hoo"

"What do you think, darling, can we trust Rin to treat Sia like a lady if we attend to business?"

The click of Rin's jaw back into place was audible and encompassing, as if his entire head had been rebooted after a circuit break. Some small bit of unbiased, logical curiosity, perhaps plucked up by the serious nature of the word 'business,' made him speak to himself plainly enough to be heard.

"Wait a second. If this is first time you've visited, how did you know where the front door was?"

The absurd rudeness of the question made every nerve in his body retract, then loosen when the king looked not at the offending detective, but instead swung his head around to face the suspect on his shoulder.

"And since when have you called me 'darling?'" The question was incredulous rather than suspicious, but the answer was obvious, regardless.

Pudding flower pouted for a moment and transformed in a puff of smoke almost as white as Eustoma's face would be in the next second.

Rin didn't gape or glare this time, but he did almost gag.

Forbesii, the king of the world of Devils, was certainly the more feminine of the two monarchs, but he didn't look right in the exotic kimono, dainty as he tried to be when he slid off the god-king's shoulders. He crossed his arms and sat back on the head of a sofa, airily dismissing anything that might undermine his performance.

"Well, Eustoma ol' buddy, I don't know how you can expect to keep your daughter under control when you can barely control yourself."

Rin knew that people from the God and Devil worlds could use magic, but he frankly had no real idea how much could be done with it. Right then he had never wanted to NOT know so much in his life. He imagined, watching the death of the God-king's trouser temple, a sea serpent slain with a single strike.

"Forb…ou…you-"

"Oh come now, your highness. You know we asked our wives to stay in their worlds. Did you think your…" Forbesii made a show of looking at the other king's crotch, "_charms_ alone would be enough to overwhelm duty, even under the Lemon Star."

"You…you-"

Rage was climbing the ladder of Eustoma's breath. Murder was condensing on his teeth.

Rin barely brought his arms up in a protective gesture in time to block the hail of fine and classy interior shrapnel.

Eustoma had yelled something like 'devil, freak, or kill' all at the same time, and lunged at the smaller king. This attack shattered much of the living room, but Forbesii danced out of the way effortlessly, skipping and giggling into the garden so like a schoolgirl that Rin covered his face again. Eustoma gave chase, reminding Rin of the time he'd stood a little too close to a train, then making him think of trains and tunnels, which made him hide his face more thoroughly. The pursuit had already carried them to the other side of the house by the time Rin opened his eyes. Surely everyone in the neighborhood could hear them.

"Come back here you depraved monster!"

"Monster? Have you no care for a lady's delicate feelings?"

"I'll show you delicate!"

They'd doubled back now and went charging past Rin as if he were less than a tire barrier at a drag race. The unspeakable threats and unthinkable taunts continued and elevated till Rin stepped inside and closed the door, as much to hide his fear as his shame by association. He stepped over the remains of the living room and into the kitchen, wondering if, with Sia clearly missing, he'd be the one responsible for preventing an inter-world war. Would bringing out some snacks in a friendly way show that all was forgotten? Would getting them drunk make things better or worse? Where the heck was Sia, anyway?

"You would have let my daughter see us like that, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?"

"Like what?"

The commotion halted for a second, then broke with the sound of magic smoke and a voice somewhere between the previous mask and the present marauder.

"Like this? Or maybe like this?"

"Eeeeeyooow! Get off me you nasty little worm!"

The chase continued with multiplied force. Rin grabbed his skull and rested his elbows on the kitchen counter. It was hopeless. This was how it all ended. Like this. The should-be-but-not-funny indignity of it all.

_No._

The Right Thing to Do made it clear that now was no time to act like a stuffy old woman. He had to be a man, go out there, and break those two up. If one of their daughters were here this never would have gotten out of hand, but wherever they were it was probably better they not see this. Maybe he could just turn the hose on them like a pair of dogs.

"WAAAIT!"

Eustoma's command tore the whole world into an eerie silence.

Rin heard Forbesii skid to a stop. Rin dared to hope, then swore he would never hope again when he heard the Devil-King's chuckle and the God-King's roar.

"Forbesii! Step away from the-don'tyoumakethatfaceatme!"

As deadly serious as he sounded, he couldn't have been serious in the next moment.

"Don't make that face at my koi, either!"

Rin decided, there and then, that even if alcohol made things worse, it was worth the chance to end this quickly. He scoured the cupboards and found nothing, nothing useful, then more nothing. A loud splash outside made him double his efforts.

"My koi!"

Rin found some pots and pans.

"Oh-ho no-oh!"

Rin found the cutlery.

"Get out of there right now!"

"I'm all wet! What if someone sees through my clothes?"

Rin found some cleaning supplies, remembered Kaede, made a panicked sound, and started throwing everything onto the floor.

"You-don't you DARE! You put Mr. Wet Cat down!"

"Mr. Wet Cat?" Forbesii asked, deviously amused.

"Mr. Wet Cat?" Rin echoed to himself, horrified.

The chase outside became louder and more violent, as did Rin's search. In a moment of reflexive yet useless courtesy he tried to correct the rug by the kitchen sink. Naturally, as lucky people turn clumsiness into a virtue, he uncovered a trap door. As lucky people go, Rin wasn't a gambler, and so it took a few thoughts to unroll his fortune.

_A trap door?_

_A trap door!_

_A wine cellar!_

Rin laughed triumphantly, lifted the hatch by an iron ring inset with the wood, and froze. It was dark down there. In fact, the light didn't penetrate into this abyss half as far as it should. The longer he stared the quieter the royal ruckus outside became. It wasn't like looking into the sun at all, but the sun, streaming through the kitchen window, spreading over his back, seemed to be looking over his shoulder.


	4. Chapter 4: The Green Light

The Anime series "Shuffle" is brought to us by Funimation, not me. I do not profit financially from this. The line between dirty and filthy is clear but the line between dirty and merely naughty always seems dotted. Cold water reviews welcome.

[Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

[Side Note:] See 'On Shuffle,' but only after this chapter.

Chapter 4: The Green Light

It was only a wine cellar, and only alcohol could interrupt the inter-world incident escalating around a koi pond. Rin bent forward and called down.

"Hello?"

The kings were still shouting outside, but the silence in the cellar was stark.

"Sia?" He dropped her name more like an ominous depth-testing stone than a wishing coin.

There was no warning sound, only a flash of wood that nearly took Rin's head off. He fell back on his rump, clutched the dull pain there, then the sharp exasperation in his skull, and grumbled. The ground outside grumbled back; the commotion in the yard now sounded like it would spread to neighboring homes before it would subside.

These types of homes didn't have attics, but the flash of wood had been a protracting ladder and the ladder led to a matching hatch in the ceiling.

The Right Thing to Do, as a voice, was really more of a monologue than a dialogue, but every so often it spoke like a concerned friend:

This isn't some clever bit of architecture, Rin. This ladder is magic and as likely to take you to the moon as it is to take you to a stash of booze.

_I know._

Good. Then why don't you look elsewhere?

_Sia could be up there._

Exactly. Aren't you ashamed of yourself enough for one day?

_Yes. No. I don't-maybe she's in trouble._

And if she is waiting for you, simmering under the Lemon Star, coiled like a snake, you can handle it? You have 'handled it' already, I suppose.

_Ha. Ha._

Hm. Maybe it is just liquor up there. You should go up if only to get out of the line of fire.

_But you just said…_

Get up there!

The ladder was taller than it seemed, the attic too vast to even pretend it was a part of the house he found it in. A single domed skylight straddled the high peak of the under-roof. Its pillar of light made dust motes seem like lonely fairies in a chamber that was not just empty, but cleared out. Rin didn't wait to ask if retreat were the Right Way to Go, but the hatch was gone when he turned around.

_Of course. Didn't see that coming._

[Don't confuse The Narrator with the Right Thing to Do, young mister.]

_Oh, Heaven and Hell forbid. _

Rin, the boy every girl wants but who is actually a smartass little brat, slouched and turned slowly back around. He almost laughed, almost moaned when he saw the spacious reading chair. He did a little of both when he looked at the end table next to it. There, in an ornate crystal bowl, were two handfuls of spherical chocolates. A pink and white striped origami heart nestled itself into the clutch.

"Sia?" Rin had finally been exacerbated into defensiveness now, even as he walked knowingly into the trap.

"Sia? Kikiyo? I know you can hear me, so you can come out now."

As he had suspected at first glace, Sia had written his name on the heart and folded it in a way that begged him to unfold it. The fold-up heart became a larger cut-out heart. On the other side of his name was a message:

_I spent all night making these chocolates just for you, Rin. I'd wanted to bring them to you, but somehow I just know I dropped a bit of jewelry in one of them! I can't bear the thought of losing it (Or of you chipping a tooth!) so I need you to eat them here for me CAREFULLY. As soon as you find it I'll be able to rest easy. I'm so sorry to keep you, but I had an idea… _

_Maybe if I put on a show while you eat they'll go faster, like candies in a movie theater._

Not thinking, not thinking at all, Rin flopped down into the chair to re-read what he couldn't have read correctly. The paper smelled a little like chocolate and a lot like very fruity, very girlie body spray. Reading it for a third time, the paper started to look more panty-shaped than heart-shaped. He picked up a chocolate and examined it in disbelief.

The light went out, all the way out, then refocused tightly into the center of the room. Skylight to spotlight was too dramatic a transformation to be dangerous, but it was all sudden enough to make Rin grip the chair. He dropped his chocolate in the process, but found it in his lap and popped it in his mouth without thinking, without thinking at all.

A deep grumble spoke as softly as it could, reciting something with dramatic hesitation. This made Rin's knuckles white enough to glow, even as it was immediately followed by a delicate synthesis of pipe organs and choir angels. The sound seemed to angle the light further back, dust motes now like a pillar of snowfall. This inverted curtain was perfect for introducing a woman in a hooded, black velvet cloak; so it did.

A man's voice sang out in what Rin guessed might be English, maybe French. Western singing always sounded the same to him, even when it was so baritone that even a croon sounded like a moan.

It was Sia under the cloak, of course, maybe possessed by Kikiyo again, maybe by the Grim Reaper's concubine. She walked forward purposefully and the light followed like a veil. Every step complimented the song, obviously meant to imitate, or perhaps profane western church music. Each step lifted the ground beneath her feet, or lowered the ground beneath Rin's chair, he would never remember which. He could definitely take another chocolate, though, and another to help his friend find her jewel between his tongue, heaven and the roof of his mouth.

Sia raised her hands toward the sky, toward something vaster. The robe cascaded to the floor and the light vanished too quickly to see more than a flash of skin and black fabric. A ring of green lights, thick enough for a darkroom, exploded into life all around them at the precise moment that the music exploded in romantic, epic, screaming metal.

The princess of Gods was dressed for an erotic funeral. The requiem poured from unseen speakers all around them, a march of churning guitar and thundering drums beneath a banner of choir and organ. Once brooding, the voice sang out with a powerful confidence, as refined as it was lascivious. Rin didn't know what strip-clubs were really like and he didn't know where the chrome pole had come from, but Sia had better answers than the real ones.

She put her arms behind her head and walked with her hips as much as her legs. It was as if she were taking an aimless stroll with herself, sweeping invisible wildflowers with the trail of her sheer ankle-length nightgown. It became more and more like a net as it began slipping from one shoulder, then the other, eventually cast off as she spun onto the pole. Rin didn't blink, didn't think to suck on the next chocolate before biting down.

The next and the next made his mouth sweet, sweet then dry, but more and faster could fix each other. He almost forgot to chew as Sia climbed up the pole, only to spiral down it again. One leg drew in tight beneath her and stretched the other further outward. Her boot heels alternately impaled the air, kissed the backs of her legs, and saluted the green light with black…leather…vinyl…chocolate? The material didn't mater. Rin reached for more candy and his hand brushed against a tall tumbler of ice and what he hoped was only water. He took a long sip without blinking and tried not to sigh too loudly.

Sia's skirt was made for her boots and had clearly wanted to be a belt anyway. When she performed an effortless handstand to cling to the pole by her ankles, Rin could see that her panties were tiny and somehow darker than the pitch pushing back at the green light around them. With her hair sweeping just above the floor, Rin saw that her eyes were gone, shadowed so heavily that closing them turned her whole face deathly…but then she opened her mouth and he saw that her lips were green, an emerald darker than…colors? Shapes? Yes, shapes, Sia drew shapes with her fingers over her chest, over the corset that enhanced it.

Rin was having a hard time appreciating her movements and her chocolates at the same time. He had to force himself to blink, to chew. The music changed again, the singer's voice becoming impossibly deep, almost inhuman, lifting Sia up the pole again. Once at the very top, she relaxed her thighs so that she began to spiral downward, upside down. Her hair swung out, guided by the song's latest change to angel organs. A crashing return to metal groaning sex lifted Sia's head and body at the precise moment to spread, to sprawl herself onto the floor.

The song settled into gentle acoustic guitar, to a sweeter croon that still shouldn't be possible from the same man. Sia kicked her legs slowly, treading molasses.

Rin took another chocolate. Another. Another.

Each time one leg came back within reach she deftly undid a button along her calf. One boot she slid off with both hands. Another chocolate for Rin. Another boot she removed with her bare toes. Rin thought of Kareha's story and took another chocolate not to. In movements too soft for bones, Sia swirled round and sat up on spread knees. Drums punctuated the serene music and Sia began to remove her corset, swiveling every part of her in every other direction. The singer rediscovered more passion and Rin wondered if trying to translate the lyrics would distract him enough to relieve the tightness in his pants.

The corset fell so that Sia's hair could have a turn at not really hiding her breasts. The guitars soared electrically now toward some impossible apex and she crawled toward Rin on all fours. He wondered, distantly, if he could turn away. This was not a playful flash. This presence approaching him had covered herself so that he must look, so that he dare not blink, move, breathe. His throat flexed, his hand flexed and reached for another chocolate. It was no kind of cold in there but Sia's eyes opened for the first time and Rin's teeth chattered. His hand flapped about and found nothing but ice in his glass, nothing but fingerprints in the crystal.

Sia's movements had formed a new Now. She was close enough to touch, sitting up on spread knees again, her hair the true color of red velvet, the final dare in a simple parting of curtains. Nails painted to match her lips traced along her faintly heaving belly. Rin noticed the tiny chocolate spying out from her navel in the gasping moment before she plucked it out and placed it in his mouth. It was like that first impossibly bitter taste of coffee and Rin couldn't help but pucker. Sia shushed him, then kissed the other side of her finger. The singer hollered like the most noble of night-fiends holding back the sun, and Sia began turning away. To this day Rin will not admit how sorry he was to know the song and show were ending, or how it felt to know nothing.

The drums awoke and returned the pace of the world. Sia sat into Rin's lap, folding his length against his stomach in a single solid, fluid, steaming motion. The guitar became both more aggressive and more upbeat. The singer was definitely singing something in English. If he translated it he could stay in control. Even if it was profane (and he expected it to be) Rin had to recall his language notes before Sia made him lose something he hadn't even recovered yet. She was rocking, grinding into him, her hair gliding over them both. Her skirt was up, her hips were down, her body-

_What is he saying? What is this monster rocker so smug about?_

Sia leaned back and Rin closed his eyes, knowing he could easily look down at her bare breasts, heaving with her as she heaved into him. She curled the back of her neck against his shoulder, waving the exquisite scent of her directly into his brain.

_Did he say someone 'looks?'_

_Did he say the American word for God?_

Sia's hands tore his own from the chair and placed them on her waist. The Right Thing to Do would be to resist, but the Right Thing to Do somehow tricked him into gripping tightly.

_Was he singing about what heaven looked like?_

_No._

"Yes," slipped out of Rin's mouth in a tiny breath.

Sia took a breath through her mouth and let it out through her hips into his lap. The singer boasted, the singer declared in triumph that he looked like, that someone looked like someone. The whistling organ, the serene choir, what pornography were they hiding? The repeated line rose with even more force and Sia bore down with the same.

_She must know this song well._

Such an obvious realization brought Rin's mind off his own hips, but that just made them buck with more force than he realized he'd been holding back. They were automatic. No. They were alive. He was alive. He was healthy and strong and the spotlight, the Sun's own Will warming the Shadows, it all had granted them a stage. The green and black were hazy behind their passion and the song was over.

It had ended so abruptly that Rin wasn't even startled by the sound of his own heavy breathing, or Sia's, louder than his own. Another moment and his own overwhelming declaration engulfed him, the exact sound of convulsion. The bitter chocolate in his mouth disappeared.

He grasped at his throat and swallowed again, wondering what had been wrong with that last chocolate. Sia sprang up, and whirled around in disbelief. Rin watched her roughly fold her arms at him. He could not see her expression for the light behind her, but she sounded cross for some strange reason.

"Rin! How could you?"

Now torn entirely from his reverie, Rin's eyes blinked, bulged, and then crashed back as they tried to do both.

"That pearl has been in my family for generations! I went through all this trouble and you just-"

Sia huffed, picked up the glass of half-melted ice, and poured it onto Rin's lap with almost robotic precision.

And Rin's lap said: _Cold!_

And Sia said: …

And Rin's nerves said: _Really cold!_

And Sia said: …

And Rin's brain said: _Too damn cold! _

And Sia said: …

And Rin's mouth said: "_C-C-C-Cr-Cr-CRAZY BITCH!"_

The both of them said: …

Sia moved her hands down to her hips very slowly. Rin nurtured his anger for another moment, knowing he couldn't bring it back to life, but desperate to be seen trying. The effort was brief, life was brief, but Rin didn't know if he was ready to die.

"I am a god, Rin."

Her tone was serious as if serious meant obvious, but whether he'd enraged her, or mortally wounded her feelings, Rin didn't know. The Right Thing to Say would be The Right Thing to Do, therefore he'd have to say something that was at least accurate if not true. He'd translated that final line in the song, and so he sang to himself in a lucid if bloodless dream.

"_Jesus Christ looks like me_."

Author's notes:

Extra points to anyone who guessed the band before the lap dance!

Extra EXTRA! points to anyone who guessed the song before the translation!

Extra caution around anyone who has seen the original 10 minute music video…

Extra…erotic funeral? As of today 4/15, this point in the story (which I've reworked, abandoned, and tried to move forward from for too long [there's proof]) is as done as it's going to be. As of yesterday, 4/14 rumors began that the singer in question, Peter Steele, has died. It may be his latest hoax of this kind, but I'm going to put this up before I know for sure.


	5. Chapter 5: Holy

The Anime series "Shuffle" is brought to us by Funimation, not me. I do not profit financially from this. I do not apologize for the line between naughty and dirty, cleanliness and godliness, or the pen I draw it with.

[Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

[Side Note:] See 'On Shuffle.'

[Chapter 5:] Holy!

Rin had never watched another man remove a woman's stocking before. He was only a teenager, but most people went their entire lives without witnessing the real thing, much less the real thing done right, much _much_ less directing it. Itsuki was full of surprising ad-libs, interpreting the latest instruction of "take off her stockings" as "remove one stocking slowly, fingers hooked under the elastic, rolling it down in a sea saw motion that creases the flesh of her legs."

_Rin would never begin a stroll down memory lane here, but if he did he'd quickly clarify that he was getting ahead of himself. Last we left him he had just called the future queen of Gods a 'crazy bitch.' _

_ Who knows if Luck has anything to do with being good at apologies? Maybe Rin can tell us._

"Oh no. Sia, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-you're not a…a-"

Rin tried to say the words again, the horrible thing he'd called her, but they strangled him. This made him acutely aware of how terrible they were. This awareness in turn made him doubly unable to take them back.

Anyone could have understood, empathically, the truth Sia mumbled at the floor.

"You can't un-say something, Rin."

Rin now understood this quite literally. But…

"But! But! But you're not-"

"Then what am I?"

Sia let the empty water glass fall to her side. Rin tensed, but it didn't break. He watched it roll in a complete arch before Sia somehow lifted his eyes into hers.

"What do you want me to be, Rin? Just tell me. I don't only want to be your lover, I don't just want to be the mother of your children, I want to be your…your power, your faith."

"What are you talking about? Sia, we're both just-"

"Look to me and I'll be everything to you."

Sia's voice, her steps toward him, all a leisurely sleepwalk through an erotic narcotic. Rin nearly fell out of his chair to back away. He found his hands caught in a pantomime routine between warning and pleading.

"Sia! You have to get a hold of yourself! The sun! That Lemon thing out there is messing with our heads."

"No star can make you anything but yourself, Rin. I feel more like myself than I've ever been."

Sia ran her fingertips over her heart, stirring the hair over her breast. Rin saw his hands clench and put them under his arms.

"Kikiyo and I, we've never felt so much like one person."

That one person swallowed audibly and spoke in a much more erotic and much less sleepy dream.

"I am Lisianthus. I want you to _feel_ how much I love you. I want you to _know_ the love of a god. That dance, I didn't do it to embarrass you, I wanted to give you a taste of what our lives could be like. It was good, wasn't it, you watching me in…in awe, me looking down at you in…and us…dancing…together. I don't just love you, I adore you, I always will. I pro-"

Sia swallowed and licked her lips, suddenly parched. Rin thought of the water on his pants, if mostly of his pants. Sia spread a hand over her heart and Rin looked away before the curtain could be drawn.

"Um, maybe you should put your clothes back on."

In looking away, Rin looked again for an exit he might have missed. He barely stifled a triumphant noise (even he knew that would've been taken badly). The ladder had reappeared, as if by magic, as if by fairy guardian, happy helpful magic instead of insane sex goddess magic.

"And I should, I, me-me, my, and I-" he punctuated himself with quick glances back at escape, "I should get a towel."

On his way down the ladder, Rin heard Sia call after him.

"But…_hey! _Hey, Rin! Wait up!"

She sounded like herself again and Rin was so relieved that he almost went back up the ladder. In fact, he was also so relieved that he fell off the ladder. He landed on his feet before he landed on his back, but Sia still poked her head out of the ceiling with a look of panic.

"Oh no! Are you okay?"

Rin waved at her and laughed as he stood up. It was an awkward attempt at a reassuring laugh at first. It continued till it almost convinced him. It continued till it wasn't a reassuring laugh at all. Everything in the cupboards that hadn't stored alcohol, and now didn't store towels, just got funnier and funnier.

"Rin?"

"This is the second, HAHA, towel-search, HeHOO, I've been on today. It probably won't even be the last! I'm probably gonna have to give up on this one too. 'Throw in the towel!'"

Rin laughed a lot harder.

"What are you talking about?"

"Towels? To-wels? Where are you, towels?"

"Rin, calm down. I'm sorry, ok? Don't be mad at me."

"The sink! Of course! They must be under the sink."

Sia made it to the sink before Rin did. She may have teleported for the first time, but it'd be the second time that morning that Rin would later recall as flying. He landed up-against rather than on-top-of the counter, but it was flight.

"Do you really think I'm crazy?"

Sia had put a white T-shirt on, but she was obviously braless and obviously still pained. No relief for Rin. No more laughing for Rin, either.

"Sia, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean it. It just…startled me, okay? This morning has been one shock after another."

Her head down, her arms around herself, Sia leaned her forehead into Rin's chest.

"Well…we've got the whole day ahead of us."

_Damn, you know how to flirt._

Rin was so close to speaking his mind that he almost slapped a hand over his mouth. The silence that followed was silence, but silence was not what he'd left when he went into the attic.

"Sia, we've got to stop your father," Rin gave Sia's shoulders in a tiny shake, "he and Nerine's-"

Sia shot him a pained, even angry look.

"What about her?"

"I-Sia, I'm talking about your dad and hers! They-they sounded like they were going to kill each other! That's why I-"

"Kill each other?" Sia's expression changed to disbelief so quickly that it took Rin's with it. Her laughter, though, actually did feel reassuring.

"Oh, dad'll embarrass me alright. More than he usually does, probably, but no one's getting killed."

Rin inclined his head to the side and happened a glance over her shoulder. The glance carried through the kitchen window, into the garden, and over the koi pond.

One king was pressed against a tree. Both kings were pressed against each other. Their foreheads tilted forward, their noses tilted up, forming a diamond between their faces. Even from a distance Rin could see that they were, not challenging, but daring the other to blink. They must have exceptional focus, even for kings, as both their hands were continually hiding and finding something in the other's robe.

That intensity between the two kings kept Rin himself from blinking. It even kept him from noticing Sia's wry smile. She stepped aside, encouraging the tiny impulse of curiosity to push him forward, to put his hands on the edge of the sink and his face closer to the window. He would not be able to tell anyone how he felt for those long moments, but he'd keep trying throughout his life.

The next moment, when Eustoma pulled back the Devil king's long hair so that he could inhale his neck, that moment was almost real enough to describe. When Forbesii slid two fingers into the God king's mouth, that moment, with Rin as its witness, was an easy textbook definition of 'silent shock and awe.'

"Holy-"

Sia spread her hands under Rin's shirt and pressed herself into his spine.

"That's right Rin: 'Holy.' Any time a God and a Devil get close like…this, or any way really, and especially when it's under the star, it…it _is_ holy. It's everything about the deepest parts of us, coming together."

"Your dad and…they're really-"

"Mother isn't coming to the human world today, Rin. She's probably doing what they're doing back in the land of the Gods. And if she's not doing what they're doing, she's doing what I'm doing."

The Right Thing to Do usually kept its attention on the people Rin might wrong in some way. Every so often though, it tapped his shoulder for his own good.

Rin blinked, blinked some more and started to turn around, confused and a little more defensive.

"What _are_ you doing?"

"That's not what I mean, it's-" Sia seemed caught between a gasp and a stutter, "I only need you. I don't need disciples."

"Disciples? What-"

Rin almost turned all the way around at that point, but Forbesii did, and Rin's attention was focused outside again. He made a questioning sound, a less disbelieving sound than he expected as the God king's robe slipped a little to the side, exposing the muscles of his shoulder. The Devil king reached back, pulling his ally forward, drawing blood under his pristine claws.

Sia laughed, then laughed seductively, then spoke so seductively it was almost funny.

"You…you would rather see me, right?"

Her hands moved down his chest so softly that Rin closed his eyes.

"Sia, you've really got to stop this before-"

"Before what?"

Rin swallowed, trying to say something about her father seeing them. A silly lie was bad, the truth was worse, so:

"You know what."

"I do know, but I don't think you do. I'm not a girl with cute ears, I'm not a girl who can use magic. I'm a God."

Sia slid her hands down his belly softly, slowly, but not at all stealthfuly.

"I can be YOUR god, Rin. I can lift every part of you higher than we can imagine, all you have to do is lift yourself up to me."

Sia's fingers were especially warm beneath his still soggy pants.

Rin grabbed her wrists in his hands, she gently maneuvered her own hands back up into his. Holding and holding back, like manhood outside, became different things all at once.

"I'm a God, Rin. I'm a God, and I love you. What we could have is so rare, so wonderful. I can only show you so much before I have to show you everything. My dad would be happy, I know he would, my mom and him love each other, but us coming together like this would be better than anything, better than all the Gods and all their followers and-"

The Right Thing to Do may have tried to tap him harder before progressing to a slap upside the head, but Rin wouldn't have bet on it.

"Followers?" Rin turned around, letting their hands fall away. "Disciples? What're you talking about, Sia?"

"I shouldn't say any more," Sia stepped away from him, seeming more unsure of herself than anyone he'd ever seen, "not until you're ready to make your promi- to make your choice."

"It wouldn't be right, you're not yourself, and I don't think I am either."

Rin was saying this, meaning this, but taking a step forward. It made even less sense and hurt a lot worse when Sia took a step back.

"You don't understand, Rin. I told you, the Lemon Star, it's not a bad thing, if we…if we do it today, it'll make sure we're together forever."

"Forever?"

Rin winced at how uncomfortable he sounded saying it, then cursed himself for how much deeper Sia drew into herself.

"As-as long as we're alive."

The Right Thing to Do clearly didn't give two damns about consistency. Rin wondered, subconsciously, if he'd be saying 'back off' and 'I'm sorry' for the rest of his life.

"Sia," he tried to console, "it-it wouldn't be right, you're beautiful, you're wonderful, but-"

Sia didn't move suddenly, she simply looked up at him. It was startling because she looked at Rin, not at the boy she fell in love with, not the man who would be everything to her, but at Rin Tsuchimi, the person, the mere human. Her eyes didn't dig or burn into him, rather they let his eyes fall into hers, into something he did not understand in the slightest.

When she snapped her fingers, Rin flinched as if she'd pointed a gun at him, then nearly jumped out of his own pants. He looked down, noticing they didn't just feel dry, but fresh out of the dryer. He looked far, far away when he saw that his excitement was only half as gone as the water. It wasn't nearly far enough, and he fell further into Sia's gaze.

"A God's magic, my magic, is the _safest_ kind. Kikiyo was scary, I know, but you have no idea how the other, how they-"

And it was gone. That radiant, overwhelming power in her eyes washed away down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Sia swallowed, "I'm being horrible. I'm-"

Rin stepped toward her as another sob slipped out, but again she stepped away. He looked at his weakly outstretched hands and lowered them pitifully. He felt a sigh expire and rot in his throat.

"Maybe you should go."

Rin was more certain than she was, more certain than he'd been all morning, that she was right. He mumbled a simple 'I'm sorry' and began walking to the door. Certainty being what it is, Sia caught him by the wrist just as he touched the door handle. She already had his palm on her heart before he could look at her.

"I'm a God, Rin."

There were only slight tears in the corner of each eye, and only a slight pout to her lips. She did not look sad, or seductive, she looked, Rin made a point to remember, like the sun illuminating a hole in dense clouds. He broke the gaze to look at his hand upon her chest, drawn not to the nakedness beneath her shirt, but the heartbeat. It was so fast and intense he was actually afraid to let go.

"Make me your God and I'll be everything for you. I'll be love, and life and…and everything. If you change your mind, come back before the sun goes down and we'll be the most beautiful thing in any world. I…I…"

Sia was losing her highest self again, and it was lost before she grasped for it in Rin's hand, bringing it to her cheek, her lips.

"_I promise."_

The words hit his ears like a searchlight in his eyes. A gasping charge spread outward in every direction from his chest, all his senses heightened for a few seconds before he gulped and blinked.

Sia let his hand fall and walked further back into the house. Rin watched her, thoughtless and unable to move till she'd disappeared down a hallway.

The kings were lying in grass, on their backs, like hands on a clock, half an hour past or half an hour till 12. Their hands in each others hair, along each others jaw lines, counted very slow seconds. Their robes were on, if loosely, but Rin was more concerned with whether he could tip toe by them unnoticed.

"Leaving so soon, Mis-ter-Rin?"

Mister Rin didn't fly, and he didn't even jump that high, but he did make a very high pitched noise.

"Sir, your highness," Rin began bowing, again and again like a windup toy, "I swear I didn't-"

"We know." The king of Devils sounded cheerful, almost smug.

"Not winning isn't the same as loosing, Ma-boy."

Forbesii made a thoughtful sound, tenting his fingers over his mouth, ignoring the fingers under his chin.

"I must admit, my Lord Eustoma, that I never expected Rin to even make it out of the house."

"I know you both tried to warn me, but when I woke up I was so confused, and so…dammit I can't be getting horny_ again._"

Rin hadn't intended to mutter that last part so loudly, but he had intended to slap both hands over his mouth so hard that his teeth rattled, so let's say he was 0 for 0.

Both kings were chuckling, then howling with laughter by the time Rin could press his forehead to the ground a third time. His apologies, still rising in pitch, only added fuel to their fire.

"It's okay, Rin, it's okay," Eustoma choked, "today is more than anyone, God or man can completely control."

"Or Devil," his counterpart added, effortlessly transforming his laughter into a wry chuckle.

"Most people," Eustoma tried to clear his throat, "most people _won't_ even make it out of their homes today, so I'm-"

This time he cleared his throat a little more deeply.

"I'm happy you came by, and I'm happy you were a gentleman, even if I'm a little sad that you weren't ready to be a man."

"Hopefully twice in one morning is enough to keep him from exploding," Forbesii added casually.

"T-Twice?"

Rin knew exactly what the Devil king was referring to, but didn't know he could fit so much blood in human cheeks.

"Now-now, Ma-boy, he's technically still my guest, so don't tease him."

Forbesii stretched his arms out and over the larger king's chest. His graceful hands seemed to be resting, but they most certainly were not.

"Am I still your guest? Hm? Are you not glad that I came to visit _too_?"

Eustoma coughed into his fist, took Forbesii's hands in his own, and gave them a hearty, manly clap.

"In any case, Rin, you may still want to check on your school buddies. Most young men aren't as honorable as you are, and even if what happens today is likely to remain…with…with today. Well, you know what I mean."

"I don't think he does."

Forbesii freed his hands effortlessly and scratched his fellow king under the chin like a trusty hunting dog. With a tiny 'click' he closed Eustoma's mouth, with a gentle rustle he turned over, his kimono falling a bit open, and propped himself up on his elbows. He spoke carefully, inching his nose into the larger man's forehead.

"We are still men of our words, Rin."

The king of Gods took a deep breath, and was serious again. He turned his head to look at Rin through a few strands of devil hair.

"That's right. Our subjects, even if they're in this world, are still under our protection. Be sure your friends understand."

Rin thought of Itsuki, and the blood left his face, taking with it some acid and a few other chemicals not meant for his throat.

"Yes. Yes sirs!"

Rin bowed just once this time, but very fast, and began walking away even faster.

"Humans used to have them all the time, but I wonder if you can grasp what it means to experience a dangerous holiday, Mr. Tsuchimi."

Rin felt much like he did when his very self seemed to be drawn into Sia's eyes. It was different this time, much more terrifying, for it being just the Devil king's voice, and not very loud either.

"Now that's enough…Ma-boy," Eustoma breathed, relaxing the tension between the three of them better than Rin could believe. When he turned to face the two men he was surprised to see the larger king looking on him protectively, yet sternly. He was surprised to see the slighter king not looking up at all.

"There's a saying, a kind of three-fold advice," Eustoma addressed the world, "that we should have told you yesterday."

Rin gulped but made himself stand up straight and nod a thanks for the wisdom he was about to receive.

"Humans make bets," Forbessi stated sleepily, laying his own cheek on Eustoma's like a pillow, snuggling up to it with gentle, closed eyes, hair sprawling now in every direction.

Eustoma, on cue, spoke somber if somber were tender as he put his hand on Forbesii's neck and smoothed the hair aside.

"Gods make promises."

The curtain drawn, Nerine's father, the king of clearly more than longest ears, addressed Rin like the only guest in the house, opening his eyes with his words.

"And Devils make deals."


	6. Chapter 6: Flat Out

The Anime series "Shuffle" is brought to us by Funimation, not me. I do not profit financially from this. The line between dirty and naughty is drawn in the sand and sand can get hot in the sun. Cold water reviews welcome.

[Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

[Side Note:] See 'On Shuffle.'

Chapter 6: Flat. Out.

_Rin had never watched another man re- _

Sorry. We're a little less ahead of ourselves than we were last time. This description of time has never occurred to Rin before, but it will soon. He's average when it comes to planning ahead, but as he made his way out of Sia's garden, and set upon the shortest route to Itsuki's house, he did try to rehearse things.

"_Rin, what a nice surprise. How are you today?_"

"Oh I'm fine, Itsuki's-mom, how are you?"

Rin hadn't called Mrs. Midoriba 'Itsuki's-mom' since he'd moved up from tricycle to training wheels, but he'd also never tried to imitate her voice before, so let's say he was 0 for 0 again.

"_Oh you know me, ever since the sun rose I've been trying to squeeze every last drop of love out of my husband while at the same time trying to keep my perverted son from violating every curved surface in the house. Do you know what that's like?_"

"That's nice. Speaking of whom, can he come out and play today?"

"_I suppose, but if he's still at home, that means he's at least not out in public, right?_"

"Yes. Yes that's exactly what that means."

"_So it's a pretty stupid question, isn't it?"_

"Yes it is m'am."

"_You're pretty stupid, aren't you?_"

"Yes I most certainly am."

"_You should just ask if he's at home. You're not little kids anymore_."

"Yes, m'am. You're right."

"_In fact, if you weren't such an idiot you'd know that Itsuki almost never stays home on the weekends._"

"Yes I would."

"_I certainly can't figure out what all these girls see in you."_

"Neither can-"

Rin's outer dialogue had been getting louder and more frantic during his power-walk to Itsuki's house. When he noticed some kids had stopped their ball game to stare at him, he stopped walking (way too soon) and shut his mouth (way too late).

"Hey mister, why are you talking to yourself," an especially snotty boy asked.

"He's not talking to himself, dummy, he's got one of those phones you stick in your ear."

"Nah-ah! Sa-su-ko! He was talking in two different voices."

The two kids, who could have been brother and sister by snot if not by blood, glared at each other.

Rin tried to smile a no big deal smile. He also tried to think of an explanation.

"What's the matter with you, mister?"

Kids could smell failure as easily as fear.

"Yeah, and how come you're the only grown up we've seen all morning?"

"Who cares? Can't we just play!" The third child was shorter, but spoke like the leader of the group.

"Yeah, it's nothing. You kids just have fun."

Rin was smiling for real now, clutching to a small blessing that these kids, who looked some years from puberty, didn't seem affected by the Lemon Star. He started to walk away again when the third child, snottier now for talking like the leader _and_ the eldest, called out to him.

"Hey! Not so fast!"

Rin looked over his shoulder, remembering what he'd learned about facing dangerous animals in the wild.

"Y-yeah. What is it, Shorty?"

It worked. The other two giggled loudly, making Shorty go red in the face, the ears, the hands, even his beige baseball cap seemed to turn pink.

"You're probably not even that much older than me, asshole!"

The other two ooo-ed at the challenge. Whether awed by his bravery, or by the trouble he'd soon be in, they at least weren't looking at Rin anymore.

"Well I'm old enough to mind my own business," Rin added a little more to his genuinely exasperated sigh, "what do you want?"

"Everyone's having an or-jer-ie today, huh?"

"Eww! No they aren't!"

"They are too, Sasuko, what do you think all those noises coming from everyone's house were?"

"Shut up, you're disgusting!"

"Mom and dad did look really in a hurry to get us out of the house."

The snotty brother spoke to their ball, but gave Rin a suspicious look.

"Listen to your sister kid," Rin tried to start walking away again, then had an idea that he'd recall as crazy even though it worked.

"And hey, why don't you just tell me where the high school gir-kids, where the older kids hang out around here and I won't tell your parents about you all being perverts."

Sasuko laughed, clearly still at that blissfully innocent age where girls believed that only boys could be perverts.

"They don't know anything, mister. There's a soda bar up the street a few blocks and to the left."

"Thanks. Thank you very much."

Rin let his relief hang out in the breeze. Sasuko took it as deep gratitude and stammered a 'whatever' through a growing blush.

Shorty took one look at this and took a deep breath. He was less red for a few seconds before he turned purple.

"CHILD MOLESTER! HELP! THERE'S A CHILD MOLESTER!"

Running was probably the worst thing Rin could have done, but if the Right Thing to Do had anything to say, the worst alarm call in the entire world was definitely drowning it out.

Rin didn't look back. In fact he didn't even notice his legs were still attached until he spied the soda bar.

Itsuki was sitting at a patio chair, alone. The wide shade umbrella kept him in shadow, but Rin could tell his friend was wearing aviator glasses and the type of hat only old men who wanted to only kind-of hide the fact they were rich would wear. Only those type of old men and Itsuki.

Impossible to walk after running so fast, Rin did a kind of leisurely jog that just made his breath that much harder to catch. When he sat down in the opposite chair, the nemesis-friend just looked at him with a very tiny, very tightly drawn smile.

"You've *_pant_* Itsuki, you *_pant*_ really shouldn't be out on the street today *_pant*_."

"Ooo! Heavy breathing, eh?"

A pair of teen girls dressed like tween girls dressed like prostitutes had just walked outside with their drinks. They were, Rin hated to admit, very enticing, but he forced himself to give them a dirty look. Not _that_ kind of dirty look, he hoped through his scowl, but they were too busy sharing a giggle to notice.

Itsuki clearly noticed, and turned towards him, slowly, very slowly. Rin would be too embarrassed, despite every other embarrassing thing he'd recall about today, to admit it, but time really did slow down in those next seconds.

Rin grew more and more afraid, terrified even, as Itsuki moved his head like a robot, like a zombie, like a robot zombie vampire sex fiend, to smile at Rin. His smile became wider and wider till Rin could see his friends teeth trembling in his skull. With the same horrifyingly slow movement, Itsuki turned this new smile towards the two girls. He tilted his sunglasses forward. He tilted his head back. He opened his mouth and flickered his tongue. The movement was more like the PR than the business end of a rattlesnake, the hissing moan that zigzagged out of Itsuki's mouth was definitely warm-blooded, and the message was as clear as the glacier water in Rin's veins.

Time didn't speed up again after that, though. In fact it may even have gotten a little slower as the two girls did the unthinkable.

They smiled.

They smiled, giggled and smiled wider, amused if not more than a little intrigued. They walked away, but both glanced over their shoulders with another tempting smile. One of them, Rin swore, even winked.

"So that's it?"

Itsuki kept announcing himself to the girls even after they disappeared around a corner. Rin was talking to himself, to the whole world condensed around himself, around his ankles in a stagnant kiddie pool. For as much as his friend seemed legitimately ill, The Right Thing to Do was just as hopelessly annoyed as Rin was.

"You've really lost it this time, eh?"

Although the pace of time had returned to normal, Itsuki's head began to roll about like a slow motion film of an escaped fire hose. The sound coming from his mouth reverberated in kind.

"You're probably already in more trouble than I could ever get you out of."

Itsuki wavered and seemed about to faint into his soda, but he steadied himself enough so that his chin merely flopped against his chest. It was small comfort, but at least now he sounded like a harmless cartoon car's sputtering flat tire. The Right Thing to Do wasn't as disgusted as Rin was when Itsuki's lips began grasping for the plastic curly straw teat of his remarkably girly-looking drink. Instead, it reminded Rin of all the times Itsuki had tried to help him study, help him get dates, help him forget he was an orphan…

"Dammit," Rin mumbled to himself, "alright Casanova, let's get you home."

Itsuki reached into his pants and began retrieving something. Rin blanched, sighed in relief, then blanched again when he saw it was a water bottle, then smelled that it was full of rum. The girly ice cream soda became less empty and a lot less girly…a lot less classy girl-girly, anyway.

Watching the concoction travel up into Itsuki's still wobbly head, Rin realized that, whatever else his friend may be today, he was totally drunk.

"Aye need do shleeEEee…p!" A helpless puff of air dropped out the corner of Itsuki's mouth, popping the last consonant and blowing a sickly bubble back into his drink.

"Ha! I'll bet." Rin didn't want to feel like laughing, but he did wish he could be an outside observer. He'd laugh then, laugh and laugh and maybe never stop.

"Itsuki, listen to me. Do you know anything about the-" Rin tried but just couldn't refer to some heavenly body like it was the elephant in the room, the randy bull elephant in the room, the rampaging, throbbing-

Rin shook his head till it jumbled any and all images, shook it some more until it was empty of all but a buzz equal and hopefully opposite to Itsuki's.

"Nevermind. We've got to get you home."

"I've been playing Mr. Bomb-Bomb," Itsuki told his drink in an airy sing-song.

"Nice. I don't even want to guess what that's supposed to mean."

With the extra strength the Right Thing to Do had sure been stingy with so far this morning, Rin lifted Itsuki from his chair. Now supporting him like a wounded comrade in arms, he began walking them both away from the table. Rin looked over both their shoulders and was relieved to see the water bottle forgotten on a chair. He refused to let himself worry about someone else finding it. He refused. He could carry Itsuki's ass home and he could let some kid find a bottle full of-

"Dammit! _Dammitdammitdammitdammit_-" Rin grumbled as he swung Itsuki around, which did nothing to steady either of them, and hobbled back.

Itsuki chuckled to himself as if he were at his wits end over something even more witless than their situation.

"Oh. Of course, some star-struck waitress came out to check on us when we could have escaped."

Rin, who suddenly had a lot of foresight for someone who pleads ignorance so much, lamented his rotten luck before the waitress was even halfway out the door.

"Hey now! Where do you think you're taking my best customer?"

She didn't seem any flirtier than the waitresses at these places usually were, so Rin hoped for the best and continued toward the water bottle.

"He's had enough, trust me."

Rin grabbed the water bottle, stuffed it in his pocket, and swung Itsuki around again. His charge imitated a baby playing airplane. The waitress called to them like the host of a very different sort of establishment.

"But he promised me an extra big tip if I…sweetened the pot for him."

Itsuki moaned in pain for both of them. Rin shot him an incredulous look, ready for his longtime buddy, who would never, in a million years, complain about a day like this, to transform into someone else.

Rin looked to the waitress, a drop in the bucket of today's mistakes, but the ripples ruffled him just the same.

"I…need to get him home," Rin barely managed.

The waitress was blushing, but clearly NOT from shyness. She was also pulling the edges of her skirt down toward her knees, but clearly NOT to hide something, but rather to keep something just barely at bay.

"Oh I don't think he needs a chaperone, but I know I sure could use a couple extra _hands_ in the kitchen."

"That's-"

The sincere word 'unnecessary' had been in the back of his throat. Rin barely caught it when it turned into the flirtatious word 'unsanitary' on the tip of his tongue. Rather than find another word that might turn on him, Rin just huffed and began walking Itsuki away toward the first road that looked like it wouldn't lead back to those snotty kids.

"Wha-where are you going?" She called, confused and frustrated enough to make Rin pick up the pace.

"Just put it on his tab," Rin yelled at the ground.

"Oh I'll put it on his tab alri-HEY! Come back here!"

Rin heard her stomp her feet, but didn't hear her running after them. It didn't stop him from urging Itsuki to carry more of his own weight.

"Itsuki, you bastard, even if you can't walk a straight line you can still walk!"

"Ha. Ha ha. It's like a three legged race." Itsuki sounded like a candy fairy, despite his breath smelling like he'd eaten a candy fairy he'd found in the gutter. Rin was less than amused.

"Oh, 'three-legged,' very funny. Everybody thinks dirty jokes are funny till the joke's on them."

"Joke? Oh…oh I get it…heh heh HA-"

"Shut up! I'm taking you home and tying you to the pluming if I have to. Then I'm going back home and digging a hole to hide in."

"But I can't," Itsuki moaned pitifully.

"We'll all be better off, trust me."

"No, please, I can't go home. Really, I started playing last night after dinner and I played aaall night. Allnight-allnight. All night."

"Wonderful. Add that to all you've drunk and it's a wonder you're not blind."

Itsuki started making weak grabbing motions with his free hand toward Rin's face.

"My eyes DO hurt, and my fingers feel numb. I could have quit at any time, it gave you continue codes, but I had to keep playing, I had to kill."

"Just keep walking, damn you."

"I had to kill all of them."

It was a deadly serious and disturbingly uncharacteristic voice that stumbled out of Itsuki, Itsuki who was a caricature even when he was trying to be sincere. It sounded as much like a plea as a warning.

"Were you really playing a video game all night?"

"I killed them all, the moon was bright and I was up and I was so hungry I couldn't think, but I killed them all. I won. I won just by not giving up. I was winning the whole time because I wasn't thinking about anything else. I wasn't thinking about school or even girls. I just bombed the walls and the little balloon guys, and those damn ghost ones and the ones that bomb you back and-"

"Well done, Itsuki, well done. Now calm down."

Rin tried to be consoling. He wondered, with an obscure flash of pity, if an already perverted person might blow a fuse under the Lemon Star.

"Had to keep playing. Had to focus on Mr. Bomb Bomb. Mom and dad were making so much noise…going at it like cats…like monkeys!"

Rin hung his head alongside Itsuki's, wondering if nowhere was safe. The pause gave him time to listen. It occurred to him that he could hear the cicadas in the park, the park that was about two, three…definitely too far away to hear any other time. The star must have cranked up the volume on them, too. Paying attention to his ears, with apartment buildings on both sides of them, apartments full of couples, had been a bad idea. Again, Rin was shocked to hear Itsuki agree.

"Uggggh. Make them stop. I could hear it whenever I wasn't playing, but they must have been at it before then, before then, after then, then-then I looked outside and I could still hear the bombs."

"You're scaring me now, Itsuki," Rin complained, mostly sarcastic.

"Every time you make it through a new maze you get more bombs, better bombs."

Rin couldn't remember what he'd heard, but it was something along the lines of 'if a drunk suddenly seems sober you should be extra careful.'

"Are you gonna puke?"

The only answer was the chorus of amorous tenants all around them. Itsuki moaned in genuine pain, clutching his forehead.

Rin spied a dead end ally between two dark and blessedly quite warehouses. It was completely in shadow, and Rin took half a moment to wonder if such a perfect place could be a mirage. There were even some old crates that looked perfect for resting, or abandoning drunks on.

After depositing Itsuki as gently as he could, trying to position his burden so that it wouldn't fall, but also couldn't get up, Rin tried to think. He also tried to rest against the opposite wall and not think, which was much easier.

"Mr. Bomb-Bomb. I'd get better and better bombs, blanket the whole level like napalm. I could go down the street, block by block, drop my bombs and I'd be bound to win."

Itsuki reached into his pants with one hand, and started loosening his belt with the other. Whether or not it was the Right Thing to Do, something moved Rin very fast, and slapped his friend across the cheek.

"Pull yourself together Midoriba! I could be saving your life right now."

A rope connecting Rin's brain and his stomach was suddenly covered in knots. Something very heavy and clumsy was climbing up. Itsuki, hands flopped helplessly at his side, sounded ready to cry.

"I want it so bad, Rin. I can't get it up when I drink, and I can't do anything if I pass out…I've been trying, but I still want it sooo bad."

"Itsuki, are you saying you-that you _don't_ want-"

"I know something's wrong with me. I know something's wrong with everyone today, but I can't help it."

Rin grabbed his friend by the shoulders and forced their eyes to meet.

"It'll be okay, man. We'll get through this."

Itsuki managed a weak grimace.

"I knew I should have come to you for help. If anyone can keep themselves under control it's someone who can resist five…no seven…or is it fifteen girls at once?"

Itsuki was using his fingers to count, badly. Rin didn't have to consult the Right Thing to Do; they could wait this thing out in a quiet little alley. Maybe Rin could get a little tipsy to make sure it seemed like a party they couldn't leave. He eased Itsuki back to a more comfortable position and reached for the water bottle. It didn't take much to get their party started.

With unprecedented speed, Itsuki had wrapped his arms around him. It was a hug of gratitude, of respect, meant for Rin instead of Rin's Luck. It startled him, but relaxed him twice as much in the next moment. There was something very reassuring, even empowering about having someone in his arms he didn't have to worry about breaking.

"You're the man, Tsuchimi," Itsuki breathed, then breathed across his ear, "I'm the man…and YOU'RE the man, and-"

"Well. Well. Well. What have we here?"

The two of them turned in unison. There was a girl, leaning against the wall with one leg folded in and both arms folded across. She was wearing her school uniform on a weekend, something you only did if you were a very good, or a very naughty student.

Itsuki tried to stand up straighter and faltered. Rin hugged him more tightly and Itsuki did the same.

Mayumi Thyme put her hands behind her head and pushed off the wall with her rear. She looked at them, one blue eye, one purple eye, one thing on her mind, Rin knew, just as surely as he knew it was the same thing on his mind, the same thing on Itsuki's.

"I should have known."

She had managed, with no practice Rin could ever have expected, the kind of sultry enunciation a flirty waitress could only dream of.

"I always thought there was some other reason you were able to keep from diving into your harem, Rin, but Itsuki-"

Rin heard Itsuki swallow and tried to guide his friend behind him, but his friend only put a friendly hand on his supportive shoulder to stand himself up. The movement was steady, and Rin was relieved to see that Itsuki's the other hand was only straightening that ridiculous hat and sunglasses combo.

"It sure looks like this club is no-girls-allowed," Mayumi continued her approach.

Rin reassured himself, though. Now that Itsuki was up he would say something rude, Mayumi would knock him cold, Rin would busy her hauling him back home, and everything would be all right.

Optimism and luck don't quite match the way people might expect. Mayumi didn't know this, but she did know what she wanted.

"I hope I'm wrong. I also hope your mothers…"

Mayumi put her hands on her hips and moved her fingers slowly forward over her thighs and onto her knees, bending to talk to boys who were little even for their age. Then, for each word that followed, she unfastened a button on her blouse. Rin in turn lost another thought about Itsuki's welfare, and at least a year off his life.

"…taught…you…how…to…share."

_Meanwhile! _

_Back at the Fuyou house!_

_ In an alternate Manga-verse! _

_ Where Kaede is always crazy and Primula is always in her Lolita cat maid uniform:_

"Kaede, where's Rin?"

"Probably off with one of his filthy whores, Rimu-chan."

"Oh."

"Would you like to help me make lunch for them?"

"K."

"Here, you can help cut these vegetables."

"But these are big batteries."

"Not big enough. Here's the cleaver."

"There's nothing in the pot you're heating, Kaede."

"There's nothing in the oven either, or the microwave, or the bathroom, or my bed or-"

"It's a nice day, Kaede. Could we have a picnic outside?"

"The sun is bad for our skin and other membranes today."

"Oh."

"Isn't it fun taking care of Rin? Taking care of him for ever and ever and ever until we're all rotting in the ground together?"

"Psychosis isn't funny, Kaede."

"Neither is pedophilia, Primula."

"Oh."

"Hand me that empty bag of rice, would you?"

"K."

_We now return you to an obscure ally where three young people are trying in vain to escape the lascivious rays of a magic star._

_These and many other romantic locations can be found in our new pamphlet "Heaven, Hell, and Japan."_

One eye was purple. One eye was blue.

One eye was blue. One eye was purple.

The colors were not any kind of fancy gemology or fashion color names. Those names were for things that worked with light. Mayumi's eyes looked something like lights themselves. Mayumi looked like she'd never had to blink in her entire life.

"Now then, I was thinking, since way too many claims have been made on you already, Tsuchimi," Mayumi had walked past them, a quizzical finger against her lips. Her blouse left only the center of her bra showing, a peak of turquoise floral lace dotting a line of healthy skin.

"AND since you don't even care if you get an eyeful of my panties…" she glared at Rin and flopped her shoulders against the wall, "I figured that we could put that to use with the fact that Itsuki wouldn't know what to do with a real woman even if she threw …herself…at him."

Mayumi's new confidence wavered in its bluff. Her cheeks ignited with a blush only someone determined to hide it could manage. She closed her eyes and lifted her head with a heavy sigh, as if the whole excruciating performance were actually a bore. Rin and Itsuki didn't look at each other. They didn't breathe. They just followed every inch of her as she wiggled a shoulder free of her blouse.

The floral pattern continued up the strap. The floral pattern was slightly transparent. Rin recalled at that moment what flowers were really for and figured Itsuki had probably never forgotten.

They opened their mouths to speak and a gulping sound rang in their ears. Mayumi, impossibly, blushed more and looked from one to the other with a devious chuckle, a downright devilish chuckle, in fact.

Rin wondered if Itsuki remembered that Mayumi was half Devil.

"Here's what's gonna happen," Mayumi began, head up, eyes closed, addressing a room full of her new servants, "I'm going to be the star of this show, and the producer too. Midoriba is going to be a *_teehehe_* 'stand in.' You, Tsuchimi, are going to have to be the director."

"This is crazy."

Rin gave Itsuki a look that would have been priceless if only we could be certain that Itsuki would never take the words out of Rin's mouth ever again (it's probably a pretty safe bet). Itsuki didn't notice anyone's expression, he just looked up and clenched his fists at the sky. His hat slipped off his head, unnoticed.

"I don't know who's been listening to my silent prayers all my life, but this is overkill! There's no way I can play…this…kind of game! Not with her…she's the…she looks so hot right now it hurts to even make eye contact!"

Itsuki sounded ready to snap and do something really stupid. Mayumi looked ready to spontaneously combust.

"Itsuki…" Mayumi whispered, then cleared her throat before declaring plainly, "that'll do. I think the audience is suitably convinced."

The Right Thing to Do would be an honest, practical thing to say, unless it was also something stupid.

"We can't do anything here, you idiots! We're in _public_. Someone might walk by and see us."

Rin looked at Mayumi, who looked stunned. Rin looked at Itsuki, who looked stupefied. His two friends, who were more trouble than they were worth on the best of days, looked at each other, and nodded with the most terrified and excited expression he could have imagined.

Itsuki sprang into action with all the gusto of an eager soldier, lifting and piling crates to make a small privacy barrier between them and the mouth of the alley. Mayumi started to help and something struck Rin hard and flat in his face.

It was his own hand, which didn't make it hurt any less, but he was able to right (if not right-thing-to-say) himself more quickly.

"That is NOT what I meant! We can't…can't…we're just-"

Rin felt his voice, his spine, his entire nervous system deflating. He felt two delicate and amazingly warm hands. Mayumi was bringing the hand not still plastered to his face up in front of her mouth, her breath was even warmer, the tiny kiss against his knuckle like a tropical raindrop.

"We're just friends, Rin. I know. It's going to be okay. I don't know how, but I think I know more than you think you do about what's going on today. Just remember one rule…"

"Mayumi…this-"

"You're in charge."

Rin looked at her eyes, from one to the other and found he couldn't look in any other direction, except down, of course.

"Of course," Rin spoke plainly to the area of thigh between Mayumi's stockings and her skirt.

"That's better," Mayumi chirped, then joined Itsuki to help him finish building their closed set.

"Wait, no, I was talking to-"

Rin was talking to his friends, his very good friends who were nice enough to agree to help each other explore their sensuality. They couldn't hear him because he had a tendency to mumble nonsense. He figured he'd better nip that in the bud, since now he had to be a director and all.

"This is it," Rin sighed at the ground, shuffling his feet toward their 'set', "this is the end. Our lives are over. Thanks, Lemon Star, I hope you get sucked into a black hole."

"You want me to what?"

Itsuki, suddenly either sober or drunker than humanly possible, looked at him in disbelief, but not, Rin noticed, defiance. Mayumi put her hands together under her chin and stepped back with a look that matched Itsuki's. The two actors glanced at each other, then looked back to Rin intensely, desperately.

The Right Thing to Do was…not silent, but satisfied. It was watching Rin very closely, but from a distance, speaking only with its eyes, and its eyes were closed over an encouraging little grin.

"Close your eyes, both of you."

Rin imagined he must be blushing, was probably even shaking, but he didn't feel…bad. No, it wasn't fear or shame, it was excitement. Faster and faster the visions came, of different ways for two people to be…close. The hesitating moments in his thoughts managed to slow the visions down long enough for him to grasp one like a tiny seed riding the air toward him.

"Now. Itsuki. Put your hands out. Higher. You too, Mayumi."

Step by step, Rin guided them through a darkened room till Mayumi had her back against the wall again (and looking much less sure of herself than before) with Itsuki shuffling toward her. His fingertips tips touched hers and they both did a convincing job of turning their nervous breaths into conspiring chuckles.

"Now," Rin swallowed, "pull him towards you. Slowly."

That last part had been added more timidly than stylishly, but still Rin felt powerful. It did not frighten him, it actually encouraged him. That, he found frightening. That, in turn, he found frustrating. Rin started to reassure himself that he was just playing along, that he wasn't doing anything…but he didn't care. This was a game, an act that made him feel so different he didn't want to spoil its newness. He could really make something of this, of them, of everyone who ever wanted to get close to someone.

Mayumi had pulled Itsuki closer and closer, till their chests met, elbows folded away.

_Intimacy_.

The word came to Rin like a wood engraving dropped on a stack of thin paper drawings.

"Tell her a secret."

Rin didn't specify how, he didn't know if Itsuki would whisper it so that only she could hear. He was as eager to find out as he was to hear it, or not hear it.

"I…"

Itsuki just laughed. Then, holding Mayumi's hands with a bit more confidence, bent into her ear. He decided to whisper. Loudly.

"I've never had a real girlfriend before. I'm about as virgin as they get."

"Go on." Rin was through being shocked, by himself or anyone else, but he liked how surprised he was by his sudden instruction.

"That _is_ a secret, right?"

"That doesn't matter," Mayumi breathed, "there's more to it, though, isn't there?"

"Mayumi, hush."

Rin took a deep breath, a nice, enlivening breath, but he still had to wipe the growing smile off his face. It was real. He was in charge of them both.

"I act confident because I know that's what girls like, and I _want_ girls to like me. I want girls to like me even more than they like Rin. I act confident because I want them to…to fight over me. I want this but…but I also want someone to love me."

Itsuki's whisper had been getting progressively quieter, but it was still clear as crystal.

Both young men gulped in near-unison, but Rin acted before anything could be made of it.

"Mayumi. Your turn."

With a highly suspicious smile, she lifted a leg enough for one tip toe and spoke in a voice as naked as the gaze she shot over Itsuki and into Rin.

"_I_ want to be used."

Rin gave the silence that followed a wide berth, then stalked up behind it.

"Itsuki, give her space. Give her space, but…don't let go."

In a not quite graceful dance move, Itsuki lifted both their arms over Mayumi's head. Now, her arms spread behind her like a mermaid on the front of a great ship, Mayumi took a deep breath, eager to continue.

"Keep your eyes closed."

The power Rin felt then as Mayumi obeyed spread directly into his heart. Whether his pulse was faster or just harder, it made his mouth dry. He licked his lips, smiling that Mayumi didn't see. Smiling at what she'd think if she had.

"Who do you want to use you?"

"N-n-not just anyone. When I'm lying awake in bed, sometimes I imagine I have a sort of…imaginary friend, a sort of imaginary lover."

Mayumi began to roll her head, and her hips, side to side as she continued.

"He's not imaginary though, he's not even invisible. He's a magic man more powerful and mysterious than any God or Devil. He-"

Mayumi bit her lip and Rin noticed that, wherever his head was, his body was not as removed from this as he thought he could keep it.

"He _uses_ me. He uses me hard. He uses me _dirty_. He does whatever he wants whenever he wants and I always want him to. He uses me because he knows that, because I'm so flat, I'll be so excited that somebody wants me so much."

Rin was starting to feel protective for a moment, that his star was fragile and needed reassurance. Then she smiled.

"And it'll be true, _but,_" she laughed to herself, deep and dark in her throat, "but soon he'll want more and more of me, more of my mind, more of my soul. He'll _give_ me power, and he'll ache for me to use it. Our p-pleasures will grab the whole universe. We'll have…'guests.' We'll make doubles of ourselves and-"

She gasped then and Rin noticed the tendons on Itsuki's forearms. They were both visibly trembling now, but silent save for their breath.

"Itsuki, let her go," his stars seemed to be dimming, but before their hands fell all the way to their sides Rin added "leave her blouse on, but take off her bra."

Itsuki flexed his fingers eagerly, but gently. Mayumi made a small, uncertain sound at his first attempt.

"What's wrong," Rin and Itsuki asked in a sync so perfect Mayumi's giggle swallowed it entirely.

"I-I-It clasps in the front."

Itsuki placed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a small squeeze. Whether it was reassuring or persuading, Rin could only guess, but Mayumi bit her lip again in what was definitely a smile.

He worked with his fingertips, carefully as if he were building a model. When he heard the tiny click of tiny teeth beneath a tiny flower, he spread it open, the halves of her bra pulling back her blouse.

They were small, but they were not shrunken, not stunted, not unfinished; they were hers. They were small enough that Rin could see her hear beat under one and see her nipples throb on the tips of both.

"Now, Mayumi, put his hands where you want them."

She took him by the wrists, then by the fingers. Itsuki was obviously trying to tremble indifferently. Rin just let her hesitation be excitement, be his own excitement. She might start low and work up, or vice versa. She might get right to the point. She might even skip past the point. That, Rin figured, was more Mayumi's style.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Mayumi all but slapped the palms of Itsuki's hands over her breasts. He breathed in, she blew out. Rin's Right Thing to Do was blown way out of proportion.

Like parents coming home early from a trip to find their children had turned their home into a living tribute to decadence, Rin's ears began to ring with all manner of 'what the hells'.

"Open your eyes, Mayumi."

He said it fearfully, almost frantically. This had to stop.

Mayumi opened her eyes and looked at Rin, and that stopped it.

The Right Thing to Do had crashed a party. It could either contribute to the fun or turn right around. Rin saw in Mayumi's expression something more like gratitude than fear, more like pleasure than anything. She began to rotate Itsuki's hands in heavy circles and closed her eyes again.

"K-keep them open," Rin breathed, "look…look into her eyes, Itsuki."

Mayumi now looking over her shoulder, a nose away from Itsuki, Rin watched their expressions change into something softer. It may have been a Change For the Better, approved by the Right Thing to Do, but they didn't seem calmer so much as more focused.

Rin worked with this new energy swimming between them, their new awareness of each other. The more he wanted to see, the more delicate his directions. Itsuki's hands on her cheek, her cheek against his chest as she undid his shirt, her other cheek against his bare chest as his shirt fell to the ground, each movement flowed from Rin's mind through both their bodies. Mayumi giggled when Rin told Itsuki to put the tip of his nose in her bellybutton, and giggled louder when he did it, but mostly she smiled, and mostly Rin smiled.

He didn't feel like a photographer, he felt more like a sculptor, molding his subjects into tender poses, not romantic poses. Sensual poses, not naughty poses. Those types of directions would be coming soon enough, he knew. He didn't know if he wanted to delay them for their sake or his pleasure, but his next instruction felt like a Change For the Better, so he guessed the latter.

Rin had never watched another man remove a woman's stocking before. He was only a teenager, but most people went their entire lives without witnessing the real thing, much less the real thing done right, much _much_ less directing it. Itsuki turned out to be fuller and fuller of surprising ad-libs, interpreting the latest instruction of 'take off her stockings' as 'remove one stocking slowly, fingers hooked under the elastic, rolling it down in a sea saw motion that creases the flesh of her legs.'

From his kneeling position, Itsuki looked like a knight more than a butler. Mayumi, even with her foot up on his knee, didn't resemble a queen, or an empress, but some conquering force above them both. Rin thought of everything he'd felt so far this morning. For once, for this sight he held in his own eyes and his own hands, it felt less like rethinking feelings than feeling them anew.

"Mayumi, put your leg over his shoulder"

She did. They even steadied themselves rather gracefully. Rin didn't even mind taking partial credit.

"Itsuki…"

"Yeah?" Itsuki answered after a shared pause, hoping to cancel out the director's hesitation with his own.

"Kiss her panties."

"W-Where?"

The question came from both actors, following a sound that was something like a yelp, something like a laugh, also from both of them. The answer was a lot more certain of itself.

"Everywhere."

Rin watched Itsuki comply. He watched Mayumi's fingers waver towards his hair. Their movements, increasingly frantic if still playful, revealed more stylish restraint than Rin would have imagined…were he not counting it as it fell away.

It occurred to Rin that his stars' improvisations were feeding each other. Mayumi tickled the back of Itsuki's ear. Itsuki gripped the string at her hip in his teeth and pulled upward. Mayumi lightly scratched his cheek. Itsuki began to press forward. Mayumi gripped his hair, her face the perfection of everything every woman was imitating in those magazines Itsuki would probably not enjoy as much any more.

Maybe Rin would make his own magazines. He'd only take pictures of people like this, nervous, but excited. They'd be real. They'd be gentle. They'd hug and kiss and-

Rin realized, as if he'd just accidentally run over the Right Thing to Do with a truck, that he'd had them steal more than a couple basses. This wasn't baseball. Rin didn't even like baseball! These were people, these were his friends, and he was about to make them eat each other alive before they even knew each other's tastes.

"You haven't-you…you two could kiss, if you wanted to."

The dead and decayed confidence in his mouth tasted terrible, shameful, but the look in Mayumi's eyes was worse.

She was helpless. She wanted to do everything he might tell her, and she would, but this was the one thing that she'd been afraid of. Itsuki stopped, not that Mayumi had made a sound or movement, but he must have either shared or caught her fear.

"But-" Mayumi whispered, eyes and mouth alternately begging and daring Rin not to listen.

Rin swallowed, opened his mouth, and then closed it.

"It's all that's holding me back." Mayumi's voice made Rin aware that it _was_ possible for him to be more aroused.

Itsuki took his hands off her hips and set them against the ground to steady himself.

"It's probably all that's holding you back, too," Mayumi said, looking down at herself in Itsuki's sunglasses, then sliding her hands from his hair to remove them.

"But it's the rules," Itsuki shrugged bravely.

Really bravely, Rin thought, even if it was an obvious bluff.

"If the director tells us to, we have to."

Mayumi looked for something in Rin that was certain, something that could save her from this increasingly unstable divide between more and less.

"Of course, a good leader would never ask anything of us he wasn't willing to do himself."

Itsuki, apparently, was better and worse than brave.

Rin closed his eyes and realized how dry they'd become. He lowered his head and saw everything beneath and below him, the tight and flowing parts. When he stood it was more a lift from his heart than a push from his legs. Itsuki stood up as well, stepping to the side as Rin walked forward. Mayumi looked from one to the other, wavering between nervous and eager, or perhaps intentionally juggling both. Itsuki only stopped looking at her when Rin put a hand on his shoulder.

"Close your eyes, Mayumi," Rin told Itsuki, "one of us is going to do it, then you can open your eyes."

Mayumi, looked at them both, smiling wider and wider. She closed her eyes and leaned forward while trying to look casual, then puckered, trying very hard not to shake. Rin made the universal rock paper scissors gesture, Itsuki was probably about to pick paper when Mayumi put one hand behind each of their necks. They were so very stiff that they couldn't believe how easily she guided their cheeks into each other. For a girl with so much power in her eyes, it was amazing that the could now reel them both toward her without opening the purple, or opening the blue one. The men in their hands would probably not blink again for a while.

"I want you, but I can't want you."

She opened her eyes then and they knew, and knew the other knew, that she was talking to them both, equal and opposite.

The slightest pull and they leaned in to kiss half her mouth. They kissed her cheeks, they nibbled her ears. She grabbed them each by the hair as they kissed her neck, caressing, pulling, commanding. Rin felt his forearm brush against Itsuki's as they both reached toward one of Mayumi's breasts. She hummed when they reached their destination together, whimpered when they twisted her nipples. Mayumi bit Itsuki's neck, no more than attached her mouth to it, really, but the look on Itsuki's face made Rin remember the two kings.

Sometimes, when Rin remembered what he did next, he'd get embarrassed, other times he'd get a big smile; he'd never be able to explain why.

Mayumi's hair was so soft and smelled _so_ good as Rin tilted his face over it, touching foreheads with Itsuki and looking him in the eye. Itsuki only looked confused for a second before staring back, a challenge, a dare. Strength and heat and flesh, all in that moment together, all in that moment inseparable as Mayumi reached into their pants. Whereas Rin's eyes exploded open, Itsuki's closed tight. The sensation was excruciating, but Mayumi was merciless. She put her mouth on Rin's neck as she took her hand from Rin's pants, kept it there as she freed Itsuki, kept it there as she freed Rin. It was impossible that he could notice anything but his own flesh, but he did; Itsuki spread his hand down Mayumi's belly, under her panties.

"What now, Tsuchimi, sir?" Itsuki's asked Mayumi's neck before devouring it.

"Tell him," Mayumi breathed into Rin's chest.

Rin curled his hand over Itsuki's and guided his fingers. Mayumi gasped and clutched their hair with all her strength, pulling their faces back into either side of her neck. Rin made sure that, when he tightened his lips, Itsuki would know it, and follow suit. Mayumi pulled on them both. Rin had to remove his left hand from Itsuki's, replace it with his right, and use that left hand to push back against the wall before it swallowed them all. Itsuki just gripped Mayumi's nipple tighter. She made the most stimulating sound Rin had ever heard. He pulled Itsuki's wrist down to lower her panties. He made a shape of Itsuki's hand and moved it forward.

"Gently," Rin whispered to everyone.

In seconds they were all breathing too loudly for Rin to think. If Mayumi's grip on Itsuki was anything like her grip on him, though, the next task was obvious. Rin took Mayumi's hand to give it some guidance over Itsuki. Mayumi, the producer who outranks the director, replaced her hand with Rin's. Somehow both men managed to keep their mouths on Mayumi's neck as Itsuki returned the gesture. Rin arched his back and gasped at the sky, Itsuki went instantly from Mayumi's neck to his. Rin clutched Mayumi's hip, crumpling her skirt in his hand, reached lower, clutched tighter as her gasps became tiny little screams, as Itsuki's muffled roar blasted against his neck. The two men tilted as they collapsed against the wall, eye to eye, breathing close against each other's teeth. Rin was ready to taste his mouth, Mayumi's mouth, every mouth. Itsuki touched his forehead to Rin's and closed his eyes. The producer's grip at the base of their skulls loosened as her breathing calmed.

Rin looked down and saw her panties, diagonal beneath the spots of fluid on her thighs, crinkling her one stalking. They were still breathing heavily when they started to put their clothes back on. Rin and Itsuki shared a look of bewildered freedom, then laughed at the two hickies on either side of Mayumi's neck, same size, same shape, different color.

Mayumi smiled shyly at them both, then stifled a laugh herself as she looked at her hands and began rubbing them against each other.

"You better check your own necks too, boys."

In classic fashion, Rin and Itsuki closed their eyes and laughed with their hands on the back of their necks. They opened their eyes and stopped laughing when their fingers smeared what they hoped was blood.


	7. Chapter 7: Good cop Bad cop Feel

The Anime series "Shuffle" is brought to us by Funimation, not me. I do not profit financially from this. The line between dirty and filthy is clear but the line between dirty and merely naughty always seems dotted. Cold water reviews welcome.

[Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

[Side Note:] See 'On Shuffle.'

Chapter 7: Good cop. Bad cop. Feel.

"So. Which one of you boys is gonna gimmie your panties?"

Had Mayumi already buttoned her blouse while Itsuki and Rin were still trying to re-pants themselves? While they were trying not to look at themselves, their selves, or especially each other? Her arms were crossed with way too much confidence to be holding up her modesty at the same time.

The two young men zipped up and answered 'What' in a kind of un-unison, an echo spun into cotton candy and stuffed inside the walls. They obviously didn't expect her to repeat herself, and even if it were a question, it wasn't even a 'why me' so much as a dull 'now what' on Rin's part and a dim 'what now' on Itsuki's.

"Mine are a mess, as you might have noticed, and I can't very well wear them home."

She was Mayumi again, sarcastic half-grin, knuckles on her hips (she hadn't _quite_ buttoned all they way up yet), talking down to them like she was babysitting their finger-painting party.

Finger-painting. Rin didn't think of this analogy, and just slouched, dumbfounded. Itsuki, however, thought of precisely this analogy and managed half a slack-jawed grin. Mayumi just closed her eyes and smiled with a tiny, not quite exasperated sigh.

"Think of it as your last act of chivalry for the day. You both helped the beautiful maiden in her time of need, and teamwork is great, but one of you get's to be a _real_ hero."

Itsuki looked at Rin, Rin looked at Itsuki, Itsuki looked at Mayumi, Rin looked at Itsuki, Itsuki looked back at Rin and held up the universal gesture for Rock-scissor-paper.

"You're an idiot."

Itsuki was only paying attention to his fist and whether they'd have to play the best two out of three. He didn't get how well this analogy suited their situation, but Rin did. While Itsuki started counting down, Rin tried to imagine which one of them was paper, then smacked himself in the forehead.

"Oh for-" Mayumi rolled her eyes.

"Are we keeping our honor by keeping our underwear on, or taking it off?"

Rin mumbled it under his breath and into his palm. Mayumi took no notice.

"I'll make it easy for you two: which one is tightey whitey and which is boxy baggy?"

"Couldn't you tell?"

Rin had asked in a purely frank, if snide manner, but this very casualness brought it all back to them. Their faces became very warm and very hard to look at.

"That is-I mean…it was-" Rin began.

"Awesome."

Mayumi's knights turned very intently at the knave become a queen. She was blushing brightly, but grinning brighter.

"You two were…wonderful."

Rin's throat dried up at the edge of his mind, now a whirlpool of recent memory. Itsuki placed a steady hand on his shoulder; his second thought was to shy away, but his first action was an exhale that felt like a smile.

"Here, Mayumi," Rin mumbled to his belt, "you can have mine. They're…"

Rin was about to say 'fresh out of the laundry' but recalled his mad hamper scavenge that morning and realized a stupid detail to add would be even worse if it were a lie.

"So are you taking the blame or taking the credit, Tsuchimi?" Itsuki chuckled, slapping Rin on the back.

They laughed, together, louder and louder. The sun still felt warm. Rin's friends were still great.

"Trust me on this one, okay?"

As he returned to his pants, Rin felt his warmth turning muggy. His sense of preparedness was clouded and, he feared, misted, by memories of Sia's attic floor (ceiling top?) show.

Itsuki and Mayumi were generally good-humored, but he'd never heard them break so quickly from cackling to howling.

"You-you! B-Box-" Itsuki struggled.

"Briefs UNDER your boxers? HA! That explains so much, Rin!"

They were laughing that the extra layer was there, but only that it was there. Rin was annoyed and humiliated a few layers beneath his relief that Sia's magic had dried him thoroughly.

Itsuki's laughter took a nosedive as Mayumi began pulling down her panties. She hadn't been exaggerating; no one should have to squish home in those.

Rin's teeth clicked and Itsuki's throat made a wheezing hiccup when they saw that Mayumi was pulling her over-ripened peel toward their seeds.

Mayumi stopped pulling her panties down and stopped laughing.

Rin and Itsuki stared at the drizzles and droplets on her legs.

Mayumi chuckled to herself.

Rin and Itsuki let themselves breathe.

"Guess I might as well use the panties to wipe up your man-aise."

Rin curled his lip a little and looked at Itsuki. It struck him that Itsuki seemed sober, but still about to drool. Even Rin could tell that this brazenness, though entirely characteristic of Mayumi, now applied to her Lemon Star-struck self, was triggering something behind those nerd-perv glasses. It was possibly that one something that even people who want everything look for, that one-

Mayumi looked up into Rin's eyes, just to let him see her glance in Itsuki's direction.

And to let him know that she could read that direction better than a book.

"On second thought, I think I'm going to try something," Mayumi spoke softly to the ground.

She carefully slipped off her panties to make sure she only had one kind of wetness on them. She stumbled a bit and righted herself, but Itsuki still moved forward, arms out.

'The two of them,' Rin thought to himself, 'it would be so perfect it almost seems fake.'

'The two of us,' Itsuki thought to himself, 'it would be so perfect it almost seems fake.'

The two young men looked at each other with something less like 'did I say that out loud' than 'did she hear us.'

"I know I don't have to worry about you guys bragging about this."

Mayumi seemed about to add a second part to that statement, but simply looked down. Rin tried to read her expression. She still seemed way too confident, which was now a little more flattering that scary.

She removed her panties and slipped them into her purse with a proud little pat on the buckle, which was a little gross. In fact, this detail still stands out as the grossest part of the experience, the reason why is a mystery Rin knew he'd need too many pipe-smoking detectives and psychologists to solve.

"I'm not sure who owes who, but I know this will probably never happen again," Mayumi announced.

The idea of them, all three connected, in one way, and another and another, made Rin wonder in so many directions he couldn't hide the disappointed ones.

Mayumi continued just as he was about to say something genuine and reassuring to both of them, or at least something nice.

"I also know that my," she chewed her lip, "that that fantasy guy I told you about, would eventually move on, but that I'd stay with him, in his…in his mind, or whatever."

Rin watched her clasp her hands together, creating a box to keep all she said.

"He would use me, and I would stay with him. I'd have a hand in everything and everyone he touched even if he forgot what I felt like. He'd use me like a dream, but he'd remember me even if he didn't know it."

Of all the times for Rin and Itsuki to exchange the 'is she losing it' look, they picked the most too late one possible.

"Still, we might all forget this some day. We might forget everything about today by tomorrow."

Rin remembered how Sia had looked, how she had _been_. It was like Mayumi had also managed to brush up against some switch in herself that made her more than a person. He stopped looking at Itsuki and anything beyond the angel of light and the angle of her lowered face.

"Now though, for some reason, I think…I can do…something."

To this day Rin curses himself for not remembering which of her eyes glowed brighter, but it was definitely just one, shining like a searchlight as she spoke to both of them.

"I think I can do magic with this. Yeah. I can."

She bent and grabbed her legs. She pulled her hands upward with a deep breath. Itsuki, who would later be absolutely no help with the 'which color eye glowed' question, did agree with Rin on the details of what that happened next.

It didn't occur to them that she'd simply clean herself up, but that didn't qualify them as ready for anything. They watched her do whatever she was doing, certain only that she was gathering some of all of them into each hand. She had been shaping, transmutating it before pressing her palms into the exact spots where they'd left their hickies. Rin thought he felt the deep scratches on the back of his head tingling at that moment, Itsuki was sure he did, and later pointed out the freshly healed scars to Rin till he believed (or stopped disbelieving) they were there. For the most part this hypnotic bit of impromptu alchemy produced no sound, no smell, and no light save the one in her eye. Even that dissipated when she extended her hands toward them, holding a large marble in each palm. The marbles definitely were the exact respective shades of those hickies and definitely felt very warm when she dropped them into their hands.

Opinions differ on which one of them was more careful to catch it with both hands.

"They're wishes."

"What?" Itsuki breathed.

"What?" Rin almost asked why Itsuki was sounding like him.

"I don't think they'll bring peace on earth, but-"

Mayumi folded her arms and looked down shyly. Or coyly. Probably both, Rin thought.

"I think they can change something about you…or about me."

"Change something?" Rin asked.

"How do you know it'll work?" Itsuki looked at his marble anxiously.

"Ahem," Mayumi pointed at the sun as if Itsuki were on it and she'd been asked to point to an idiot.

"What, so I can wish for wings or something?" Rin had been speaking hypothetically, but the idea was fun to imagine, so was sex mid-flight.

Rin blinked a long cleansing blink.

"I don't know. Maybe it won't work at all in an hour, maybe it'll be able to do anything in a few years, just think of something now or take it home."

Mayumi pouted as much at herself as at the two of them.

"Anything?" Itsuki asked stupidly, but he looked straight at Mayumi when he did it.

This took her off guard for just a second, but she quickly looked away with excessive disinterest.

"Just try something already, I don't care. Make it so you don't need glasses, or give me bigger boobs. Anything."

The 'so you'll like me more' part of the second suggestion was so obviously a hidden subtext that even Rin saw it. He wondered for a second if Itsuki may have too, but Itsuki's reply made that question moot.

"You're perfect the way you are."

He sounded like Itsuki again, but also like Itsuki anew. Mayumi stared just as vacantly as he had for a second and stepped forward, pushing up the bridge of his glasses.

"And I think the glasses look…okay."

Rin smiled at them and, actually knowing the right Thing to Do before It did, stepped back, then away, then started walking without excusing himself.

_MEANWHILE!_

"I'd tell you guys to get a room, but they're probably all taken by now."

Sia definitely didn't quite have her perky waitress face on as she brought the two kings some lemonade.

"Probably, my dear," Eustoma agreed, still lounging against the Devil king and addressing his hair.

"Do we have _any_ idea how wide the star's influence is?" Forbesii asked.

"Do we?" Eustoma asked back.

"No, I don't suppose we do." Forbesii answered himself.

"Seriously? All three worlds could be on the verge of collapsing and we wouldn't know." Sia sounded as uncomfortable with her sudden seriousness as the lack of it in the two kings.

"The only collapsing I hear is the good kind," Forbesii stretched a little and smiled.

"Humans are different, sweetheart. A warning would have made things worse. They'll be fine so long as they think they're alone."

Forbesii made an unamused noise.

"Oh come off it, M'boy, it might even lead to world peace."

"Or to me growing a pair of big, beautiful boobs. Real ones."

"Ugh," Sia curled her lip, "I thought my dad was supposed to be the embarrassing one."

The king of Devils looked up at the princess of Gods, but somehow made it seem like he was looking down.

"If the Gods are as polygamous as they enjoy reminding everyone, I might be something like your dad one day."

"Not if your daughter keeps herself locked in the house," Eustoma deflated Forbesii's airs.

The Devil king sat up, arms draped over his knees, and spoke very plainly.

"She hasn't locked herself in."

"What do you mean?"

Now Eustoma was sitting up, still ignoring Sia's warming lemonade and chilling expression.

"Nerine hasn't locked herself in, not precisely."

"I thought we agreed we wouldn't lie to Rin," Eustoma growled.

Forbesii stood up and straightened himself. Sia almost dropped the lemonade when she saw him cast a long, slow gaze over their house, over Rin's house, and into his own.

"It would be more accurate to say that she's locked me out."

!ELIHWNAEM

Rin didn't like being on this end of the chase.

It was one thing to evade his fan club, another to escape Kaede's, yet another to avoid Asa's teasing, and something like Hell to be chasing after the two large men chasing Asa as she tried to call for help through labored breath. The two large men panted…and chuckled.

It mostly just sounded like his own heavy breathing, but Rin knew what he was saying to himself:

_I_

_*huff_

_knew it._

_*huff_

_Nobody bothered to worry_

_*haa fuh_

_about what would happen when the star got over_

_*fffff_

_the_

…

_*heeeauf_

_perverts_!

The word 'perverts' was not the one he was thinking of. He was thinking of a much worse, more unforgivable word. It was scary enough just to think about. It was impossible likewise to let himself wonder what he'd do when he closed the distance between them. He'd simply have to do something that could take down two guys almost twice his size.

Maybe he should just call for help. He had enough breath. He had better not crash into that pile of garbage when the chase suddenly turned a corner. He had better pick himself out of the hot stinking black garbage bags and run like he'd never run before.

The chase had turned them down a dead end ally. Rin caught up to them as Asa began shrinking smaller and smaller into a corner. Her pursuers stopped a couple meters away. Rin stopped a couple more away from them and yelled 'stop' like a plea as much as an order. They were not breathing as hard as he was, and they flexed as they turned toward him.

In Rin's mind he knew he couldn't take them both, but as he reached for the marble in his pocket he hoped that they'd think he could, but that a regular beating just wouldn't be enough for their worthless hides.

Any hope of intimidation deflated when Rin held the marble aloft and cried 'HELP'! rather than roaring 'STRENGTH'! or 'POWER'! as he'd intended.

Now flat, it was time for that hope to be buried in a cat box as Mayumi, dressed in a sexy floral nighty-panty ensemble, fell from a flash of light and flattened Rin against the ground.

The only people who screamed in fear were the hero and his new sidekick.

"Jeez Rin! Already?"

Mayumi sat up and brushed herself off, her nearly bare behind nearly pinching Rin's nose.

"Wha…bu…Mayumi?"

Rin's breath was completely gone now, though it was obvious to everyone he wouldn't have known what to do with it.

His genie-angel-friend with benefits helped him up, tried to smile playfully, but failed to hide her embarrassment.

"I didn't think you'd want to see me again so soon. Itsuki and I had just started our date…I mean-"

She was blushing and hugging herself now, glancing back at him in rapid little peeks.

"Whoa-whoa, you didn't say anything about magic, sweetie."

"They don't have the ears though."

The thugs who had given Asa and Rin such a fright suddenly sounded a lot less dangerous and a lot more fabulous.

"Damn. Sorry boys, it looks like the jig is up."

Asa sighed a layer of disappointment over her own confusion.

"What. The. Hell!"

Rin stared at the predators and their prey, stared at his backup (who was staring at the predators and prey and starting to grin at the same realization that was making him grind his teeth), then stared directly at Mischief Incarnate staring back through Asa's eyes.

"Y-you-you _staged_ this!"

"Ooo we were scary, weren't we?"

The one on the right embraced the one on the left with triumphant glee.

Rin made an uncomfortable noise and a repulsed face.

"Who do you think you're fooling, Rin?" Mayumi slapped him on the back, not quite as hard as Asa could, but hard enough to make him choke on his uncomfortable noise.

"You were phenomenal, guys. Heroes, allow me to present villains Jiro and Koichi. They're friends with my mom."

"You two're so cute together."

Mayumi beamed at them. Rin gawked at Mayumi. Jiro gave Koichi a smile then gave Mayumi a look.

"Thanks…but who are you."

"Oh I'm sorry," Mayumi bowed, her tiny breasts visible for a tiny moment as the silky fabric hung forward, "my name is Mayumi Thyme, and I gave Rin a magic jewel to make a wish on, but I guess he wished for me."

"You what?" Asa asked with some mixture of emotions Rin was still too stunned to grasp.

"Um…yeah," she giggled, "I caught Rin and Itsuki about to experiment with each other and made them experiment on me instead."

Asa's eyes widened, but Rin's widened wider.

"Sooooo yeah, we didn't go all the way or anything but," Mayumi coughed into her hand and smoothed her hair "we had fun. I kinda got the best end of the deal so-and I guess this is because the magic in the world is weird today-so-so I just, sorta _made_ wishing jewels for both of them."

"Wait a second-"

"Oh don't pretend, Rin, you and Itsuki "helped" each other as much as you "helped" me."

Asa tilted her head at Rin. Rin trembled.

"Rin here's actually got a pervy streak himself. He played director and everything way better than I expected."

Asa's eyes widened. Rin's jaw tried to escape his skull.

"Rin?" Asa gasped at him while Jiro and Koichi rolled their eyes and giggled.

"Sorry if I snatched his first from you, Sempai," Mayumi winked before adding with a mock scold, "but really, making Rin come to you with the damsel in distress routine?"

"Actually, the plan was to have these two go after Rin when he tried to save me, then I'd end up saving him."

Asa played with her fingers. Jiro and Koichi laughed excessively, leaning against each other. Rin scanned the ground for his mind, speaking in a monotone.

"Actually, you didn't get my first."

All eyes turned to Rin, all jaws fell toward whatever he might find on the ground.

"Kaede took over this morning, then Sia did a kind of dance, then-"

"WHAT!"

The four simultaneous bellows helped Rin put the snap in 'snap out of it,' cracking his spine and his teeth together like a whip.

"Nothing! It's all a misunderstanding!" Rin felt the first beads of sweat launched off his forehead as he turned his desperate expression from one person to the next. Asa had something besides disbelief on her face, so he settled there to set up a defensive front.

"And that's not important anyway! ASA? What in the world were you thinking?"

Asa laughed and scratched the back of her head. Rin didn't buy it for a second.

"I'm serious! You could have given me a heart attack!"

"C'mon little Rin, you should know I run faster than that," Asa turned her nose up and away, "besides if you hadn't shown up I'm sure a real man would have."

"Ooooh hoho no-oh! I'm not falling for that. What about them, huh? They could have been shot by the police."

"Don't worry about us, Lancelot. We can take care of ourselves."

"_And_ each other," Koichi added, slap-grabbing Jiro's rear.

Rin rolled his eyes upward and ground his teeth.

"Fine. Good for you two. Have a nice day."

"Oh we will," Jiro grinned at his partner, "race you to the park bathroom?"

You can't buy an exclamation mark, but the look on Rin's face was priceless.

"KIDDING!" Jiro laughed. "Eww. No his dad gives us plenty of space, he's so happy he doesn't have to worry about _his_ son knocking up some high school slut."

"Are you talking about my mother?" Koichi looked shocked.

"At least you got that quality from her instead of her bony butt."

"I just hope you don't inherit your father's bald spot."

They shared shock with each other, then a simultaneous "Eww!" before walking away, laughing, happier and happier.

"I guess I better get going too, _heh-heh_." Mayumi smiled awkwardly and gestured in two and a half different directions.

Asa and Rin looked at her with nervous post-disbelief.

"Ok, I can do this, just…"

Mayumi took a deep breath, spread her arms, and disappeared in a flash of light. The nighty-panty combo she'd been wearing fluttered to the ground.

"Did she-" Rin began.

"-mean to do that?"

Asa finished for him, then approached Rin with a sly smile, hands behind her back. Looking at her, flushed and in sparse jogging gear, Rin forgot his anger.

"You would know better than me, wouldn't you?"

Rin blinked at the sharp tease in her voice and tried to recapture his angry face.

"And here I was ready to think it was crazy luck that you just _happened_ to get chased passed me when I was heading to the library."

"I really didn't mean to scare you, Rin."

She might have half-meant it, somewhere underneath her coquettish body language.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be outside today, there's a-" Rin looked halfway up at the sky.

"You mean the Lemon star?"

"You _knew_?"

"Well kinda. My mom told me about it."

"How did your MOM know?"

Asa looked very uncomfortable for a second, then laughed and slugged him in the shoulder.

"How should I know, she said it should only affect the Gods and Devils anyway, and that they'd just feel really, really romantic today."

Rin hung his head and raked his fingers through his hair.

"You have no idea."

Asa lifted his face by his chin.

"Don't I?"

Curious was a very good look for her.

Asa half skipped to the end of the alleyway before turning around and speaking loudly to herself.

"You know, maybe Rin's right, maybe it would be dangerous for me to walk home alone."

Rin could hear her footsteps disappearing just fast enough for him to catch if he moved now.

The word 'dammit' was clear on each of his breaths.

_MEANWHILE!_

Forbesii was the king of the Devils, and he understood this better than he liked to discuss. A good subsection of this discussion he'd never have could be dedicated to his daughter. A good section of his soul could also be dedicated to his daughter. He knew that their relationship was affected by the sacrifice of her clone, that suggesting there was any way to make a father love his daughter any more was absurd. He knew that it would make for good songs, if he allowed them, but a line had to be drawn somewhere.

He never considered himself stern, especially not when it came to his daughter. She was too good for her own good, frankly, and he should be happy to see her asserting herself. It was a matter of course then that he should be able to see her.

Unfortunately he'd obviously made one knock too few, or too many, on the door of the home he'd built for her; Forbesii was the king of the Devils and knew how to count, even if he'd forgotten how to listen. A good subsection of the conversation he should be having with his daughter could be dedicated to all the times he'd told her she might surpass his magical power before she was ready. It was obvious whose fault it was if she'd never believed him.

It was obvious he would have to look for another way to reach something that mattered more than himself.

_!ELIHWNEAM_

Rin had never been so big in real life, but the TV had never made him feel so small.

Asa had turned on the porn shortly after inviting him in for tea. He'd taken a while to react with words and 'turn that off before your mom hears!' was the perfect answer because it let Asa casually mention that her mother wouldn't be back till the day after tomorrow.

"So is this what's it's really like, do you think?"

How even the ever-comic Asa managed to ask such a question as if it were an equation for a math test, Rin didn't know, and didn't care. He'd agreed to come in for tea because he wanted to _talk_ to Asa. Seriously. That's all he'd wanted to do. Talk to her. Seriously. Rin wanted to talk to her seriously. For some reason he figured that as horrible as her prank was, at least it was designed to humiliate him, and humiliation couldn't be seduction because humiliation wasn't sexy. Unable to turn away from the large screen in the living room, Rin was ready to wonder if his body believed him. Instead, he wondered if anything was sexy anymore.

"Is this what it's like in real life?" Rin repeated her question, a dumb move even for a dead pan.

"Well it's not a cartoon we're watching, but I think you still know what I mean. Is this what happens?"

"I doubt it."

"Tsk, now Rin, don't be racist."

He turned toward her in step with his thoughts, in slow, blunt increments. Each crank of the gears in his neck added another piece to the question in his head.

_Should I-be insulted-or relieved-that you're joking right now?_

"What," in an even dumber deadpan, "is the matter with you?" was all he could manage.

Asa didn't answer. She wasn't even looking at him with that mischievous, teasing, flirting, Asa-ing expression he was totally expecting. Even though she was redder in the face than any mere 'blush' could describe, she looked serious, even somber.

"Nothing's the matter with me. I'm fine."

"Asa?"

"My mom told me about what might happen today, but the truth is she told me that anyone and everyone could be affected."

Rin's first thought was how awkward that must have been, but his first response was:

"But how did she know?"

Asa cleared her throat and Again Rin wondered if she were changing the subject without changing the classroom.

"When we first had 'the talk' she bought me some videos to show me what it was, what it was like, and how boys were probably going to think it was like."

Rin glanced back at the screen, then back at Asa, then almost down at himself he was retreating so quickly.

"I watched them all again this morning, but I didn't feel any different. I thought I was lucky."

Rin let himself imagine that he was lucky. Maybe everyone wasn't doomed.

Not everyone, he realized as Asa shrank into herself, her eyes on the act like it was a funeral procession. Not everyone, just his worth as a friend.

"But then I thought maybe there was something wrong with me."

If the ugly noises coming from the TV weren't jeering at him before, they certainly were now. His pants were becoming less tight by the second as his throat collapsed under the weight of wanting to comfort Asa with cement arms.

"Asa."

Saying someone's name that way was supposed to let them know you were opening your heart to them. Maybe Rin had said it wrong, given it a 'make me feel like a filthy fraud' rather than an "I'm here for you" inflection.

"I thought that if there was any guy who might be as turned off by this as I was, it would be Rin Tsuchimi," Asa remarked bitterly, "So I went looking for you."

Rin snapped out of his pity two-way with a microscopic little gasp…

"Kaede said you were out," Asa continued.

…that got a little smaller…

"Sia told Jiro that you went to see Itsuki."

…then a lot bigger…then a lot smaller because it was just Jiro who had talked to Sia.

Asa turned then, to make sure she was looking at him when she asked:

"So what's the answer?"

But she also pointed (way too seriously, if not at all judgmentally) toward the TV to clarify that she was asking about what they were watching rather that what he'd been doing. Rin thanked heaven and hell for small favors.

"Is this what you want?"

Rin tried to look her in the eyes, but only half so hard as he tried not to look at her anywhere else, and only a quarter so hard as he tried not to look at the TV.

It was difficult to close your eyes to hide your fear, tiring even. Rin could honestly say that he was getting exhausted with hiding. Hand-picking the right answer was like trying to finish a late movie on a comfortable couch. It was a relief like he couldn't remember, then, as he stood up, without even straightening his shoulders, and excused himself.

"I've got to go to the bathroom."

The rudeness of passing this off as a 'please excuse me' hit him in the back of the head as if Asa had thrown a pie. She had thrown a stone not a pie, but Rin didn't realize that till he turned and tried to fight slapstick in kind.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything else in there, just…go to the bathroom."

Asa crushed the last bit of his self-respect in a kind of onetwothree combination, looking at him like he'd changed his face, turning away to stab the TV off with the remote, and hugging her legs with an unamused:

"Gross."

Rin could take direction, too. He made sure to not just act the part, but be the part of the shamed outcast with every step he took to a place that was too good even for him.

_MEANWHILE!_

Kaede was flushed with her usual eagerness to please as she brought tea and snacks out to her guests. The two kings and Sia sat across from Primula, looking at anything but Primula as she looked alternately from the windows to the TV Kaede had made her turn off.

"I'm sure Rin will be back soon."

"Thank you very much," Forbesii accepted his tea and her no-help with a friendly smile, "actually we were wondering if you'd seen my daughter today."

"We were?"

Sia and her father asked in unison even though they took their tea with opposite ratios of sugar.

"Oh? You mean Nerine?" Kaede asked the tiny tremble in her tea tray. The king of the Devils' friendly smile didn't move, but his tea lost its steam.

"That's her name. Though I doubt you, or anyone else for that matter, could forget what she looks like."

The Gods narrowed their eyes as Forbesii shared his smile and cooled their tea as well. This of course made Kaede even warmer in the cheeks and even more eager to please with any information she might have (that didn't involve anything that happened before breakfast).

"No, sir. I haven't seen her today, but Asa did stop by."

"Did she?"

"Yes, and she had two older men with her. They…they weren't _old_ but they were probably out of college."

"They were holding hands," Primula mentioned casually to thin air.

"Uh. Um." Kaede looked from Primula to too many faces at once.

"How many people can one person love at the same time?"

This time Primula seemed to direct her question, like a spark, at the thickening air in the tea partier's throats.

Somewhere along the line Sia had stopped her teacup mid-tilt. Somewhere a little further along, probably near Primula's contribution, she'd stopped drinking. Tea spilled around her lips and onto her lap. Tea explored her father's nose. The lines that followed blurred between stains, ruined sandwiches, and failed attempts to help Primula support a fainting Kaede.

Forbesii managed to navigate through the storm toward a window, but the short distance he gazed through it, through it and into his own home, seemed even more obscured.

_!ELIHWNAEM_

Rin had seen people pull a 'get it together' routine out of a bathroom mirror in lots of movies. Of course, he had seen lots of things in lots of movies.

"What am I going to do?"

He hadn't seen himself look this tired in a long time. He was ready to see The Right Thing to Do appear as an imp on his shoulder, or even a pimple between his eyes. Maybe a worm under his skin?

Anything.

"I've got nothing."

Rin certainly had nothing to encourage him to be a good man in a bathroom that was _way_ girlie, even for one shared by a mother and daughter. He could almost see the mango-vanilla vapors on his very clean and very useless hands.

"I've got to get out of here."

All Rin got was out into the hallway before he saw Asa blocking him. The ghostly hair hiding the eyes pose was scary enough when someone supernatural was doing it, but this was Asa, and her hair wasn't even long.

In the context of all he'd been through he should have been expecting it. In fact, he didn't even feel bad for assuming she was there to shepherd him to the bedroom. It made assuming he was right feel even worse, though.

"Do you want to undress me?"

It wasn't a joke, it wasn't even rhetorical, but it also wasn't _quite_ an invitation. Rin couldn't figure it out, or the impossibly increased Fear it ignited, but he could pretend that he thought it was a joke.

He ha-ha'd and sidled past her, keeping his eyes toward the front door.

"Asa, I'm just going to go home and pretend this whole day never happened, okay?"

Even though he'd clearly seen that she was shaking like a person pretending to be freezing rather than a person pretending to be dead, Rin made it a few more steps before he was too tired of himself to move. When he stopped he let out a breath and accepted that he couldn't do anything but answer.

"Yes."

It didn't feel like the Right Thing to Say. It didn't even sound like he meant it, even though he knew it was true. Hell, knowing it was true didn't make him feel he knew what was Right, or even just right.

"Do you want to touch me?"

"Yes."

There it was again. Rin didn't make himself turn around so much as make himself let himself turn around. It didn't feel right, nothing about today did. He was already getting aroused again. Nothing about anything he did today was right, but Now, and then Everything, felt True.

"Do you want me to s-" Asa tensed and lowered her head further, "to use my mouth?"

As he took one step-

"Yes."

-and another toward her, Rin felt like he was facing a punishment directly, even though he didn't feel brave.

Asa's hands had been tight at her sides, but now she raised the knuckles of both hands under her chin; whether she was trying to hold it down or pry it up, Rin didn't wonder because he was watching her forearms close in together.

"Do you want to…my-"

Half of him wasn't trying to comfort or settle her, it was only half, but it was the deeper half for being the bottom half. Half of him was warning her, and half of that felt like a growl.

"Asa…don't."

"Yes or no, Rin!"

The immeasurable anger more than the measurable volume struck him, and was probably what made him strike back. He didn't ask himself, he just smacked himself, just over the eyes, but hard enough to tilt his head back.

"Yes! Okay? I want to take you against the wall right here and now! Is that what you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell the truth."

After that, Asa asked him another question. Years after that Rin would still refuse to repeat it. He'd only call it 'dirty.' Depending on the situation, though, he'd occasionally say it with a smile, sometimes even admit that he'd answered 'yes' so intensely that it shocked him.

"Why don't you?"

Rin looked at her then, her as a whole rather than wherever his eyes where. She was hugging herself tightly, now looking not just down, but off to the side.

"Because, Asa, it-"

"I know it'll hurt. I don't care."

She tried to look at him then, her eyes darting about, but she closed her eyes before she raised her head. This was what a girl waiting to be kissed looked like, but it was also a girl afraid for her very life. Rin started to turn around again.

"This isn't right. We'd…we'd regret it."

"Bastard."

He turned back to her. She had her eyes open now. She looked angry, enraged, even violent.

"I was really starting to think it was me, that there was something wrong deep inside of me that you could sense."

A tear ran down her cheek before her eyes even starting to water.

"I thought you knew how sick I'd been as a child, how sick I might still be, and you thought I'd be no good, make sick babies or something."

"Asa, stop! What are you talking about?" Rin put his hands on her shoulders, not because the sudden loss of his arousal threw him off balance physically, just emotionally. Asa shrugged away and slapped him so hard that his ears rang from the sound alone.

"You _like_ this, don't you," she spat, "you like having Kaede and Nerine and…and everyone! And who knows who else! And me! You like knowing you're the amazing, unreachable guy that the girls reach for with all their hearts!"

A huge sob jumped out of Asa's throat, shaking her whole body. Even though he'd been punished for it, comforting her still felt like the Truth of what she needed. In fact, being punished for it again felt like it would still be the Truth of what he deserved. This scared Rin enough that he took a defensive step backward.

"I used to think you were just too noble, but that's what you wanted us to think, wasn't it? You knew that would make us want you even more!"

Asa slapped him on the same cheek. It wasn't as loud, and Asa stumbled a bit in the follow through. Rin really should have heard the Truth, telling him that it hurt her more than him, but he didn't.

"You're not an idiot…you're not even a coward! You're a monster!"

Rin saw her raise her hand again, he saw her shaky hand become a weak fist. Asa looked ready to fall over. Even if he'd asked the ol' Right Thing it would have told him to calm her, comfort her, but Rin didn't do that. Rin clenched his own fists and yelled.

"That's it! Shut up!"

A deep breath can be used for the opposite of calming down, and Rin used it for all it was worth.

"I've had half the country on my dick today, and you know what? It doesn't make them any less crazy! I might be crazy, too, but I can't help it! I didn't ask for any of this, so you might as well just punch me in the balls and get it over with!"

Asa was already cowering, hands around her head, before he took his deep breath and noticed. Her sobs were stuck trying to get as loud as they needed to be, but his breaths were getting softer.

The truth was, Rin didn't deserve to hug her. He didn't deserve to pull her into his arms with all his might in a grand convoluted gesture of 'I'm sorry' and 'I'll protect you' but the truth is that's what he did.

"I hate you."

Rin knew that she'd just told him she loved him, but let himself not believe it. He even let himself believe his response.

"I don't care. It doesn't matter. Everything will be OK tomorrow."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know none of this is your fault."

"So it's yours?"

"No."

It wasn't just a shock, but like a reboot that he actually believed it. Asa was in close enough proximity to notice, so he wasn't surprised when she relaxed into him.

"So what then?"

The question was 'what do we do now' but Rin was still reeling from all the affirmation he felt after one 'no.' He answered with Truth and it felt stronger than Right.

"If I don't leave soon, we're going to have sex, and I don't deserve to be a father."

Asa was hugging him now, comforting him in perfect harmony to being trusted with the truth.

They stayed like that long enough for Rin to notice that he could have stayed like that till his knees gave out.

"You'll be a great dad, Rin…"

Asa kissed him on the cheek. It made Rin start to hold her tighter, which made him let go completely.

"…someday."

Rin watched her walk away. He followed only after he heard kitchen noises.

"You'd better get home to Kaede."

Whether Asa had forgotten or dismissed what he'd let slip about Kaede 'taking over,' Rin let himself believe it was Asa being Asa. Letting himself do things was starting to grow on him. He even let himself wiggle his feet into his shoes without worrying about creasing the leather.

"Yeah."

Rin turned around and tried to think of a way to say 'thank you' and 'I'm sorry,' but a hug was all that came to mind. Asa busy in the kitchen was probably her way of not reopening that bag.

"Well, bye."

"Hold on a sec!"

Rin heard her stuff something in a bag and gripped the door knob tightly, but turned around without much fuss.

The paper bag wasn't heavy, but he wasn't really looking at it as she handed it to him.

"Since you're neighbors, could you drop this off to Nerine? I told her she could borrow it."

"Sure." Rin smiled at Asa and even turned to smile again when he was out the door.

"Promise to take it to her tonight, ok?"

"Oh-kay?" Rin looked into the bag. It was just a cookbook. What was the big deal?

"Good luck."

The grin on Asa's face was giggly, then mischievous, then seductively challenging, then something else before she closed the door, something…evil?

"One hundred and one romantic dinners."

Rin read the title in the bag out loud, then lifted his head while his feet dug into his shoes. It had felt so good to put them on lazily, so why did they feel so tight? How did everything feel so tight?

In the center of every 'oh no' type of thought was the sun in front of him, and in front of the sun were the clouds above a star struck city. He knew enough about clouds to know that they were going to see a beautiful sunset.


	8. Chapter 8: Devil in the Details

I do not own Shuffle! or any part thereof. I do not profit Financially! from this. The line between dirty and Filthy! is clear but less colorful than the line between dirty and Merely! naughty. [Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

Chapter 8: Devil in the Details.

Rin was very quiet on his way back. The world around him was too, for the most part. It wasn't just that he ignored the few people he passed, even if they made passes at him. Rin was quiet on the inside. The inside was where he had to listen. Even when the arguments between his insides were so heated it was hard to believe he was involved, he had to listen. Most people would just call this 'thinking,' but most people don't live on the frontline of the food fight between Curse and Blessing.

He could have built a whole metaphorical forest from his indecision between whether to give Nerine the book or leave it on her doorstep. He could have clear-cut it for lumber, raised crops, and built a town or killed a river in the process. When Rin tried to think about Nerine, about Nerine instead of how to deal with Nerine, his insides just kept shouting memories of all the other cards who had dealt themselves to him today. All he could manage were images of her, and those were all either fragile, or irresistible.

Needless to say, but important to narrate, Rin did not think about the difference between Devils and Gods as the difference between Time and Space, even when struggling with memories. Rin didn't really think about unchangeable differences in general, how people were born or bread. The same went for Devils and Gods, probably for Time and Space too.

But when people say 'the Devil's in the Details,' they always mean History rather than Art or Science. Even when they don't. This is why Kaede makes her past her demon and her future worshipping Rin. This is why Mayumi makes deals with her future to enjoy the present, why Asa makes deals to escape her past and promises to her future. This is why Sia makes a present and promise of herself.

This is why Nerine's father, when he saw Rin walking up the hill toward him, thought about the past, Rin's and his own. Forbesii is the king of the Devils, though, and no one can tell him to be quiet, not even his own thoughts.

"Welcome home, Mr. Tsuchimi. I see you made it in one piece."

Still a block away, Rin heard the king's intentionally unreadable tone loud and clear. He didn't jump or even tense, he just looked up briefly, as if distracted from a somber daydream. Forbesii hadn't been trying to excite the excitable boy, but seeing him so unexcited made the king frown.

Devils have a kind of double standard when it comes to deals and parents. It's considered distasteful to come between a human and its offspring, but there's no shortage of stories where his people extended all sorts of over and under hands to humans in the name of future Devils.

"Are you feeling alright?"

Rin didn't answer.

Truth be told, Forbesii didn't like humans half as much as he let on. There was too much inconsistency between their emotions and their actions, and far too much between parents and children. Liking Rin because his daughter liked Rin and hating Rin because his daughter loved Rin was not an inconsistency, he told himself. He all but pimped his daughter because he knew it would make the boy uncomfortable. Simple reverse psychology there. He also did this, however, because he knew it would make his daughter embarrassed and shy, which was her strongest allure. Let the Gods play cowboys. He'd rather play ninja.

When Rin got close enough, Forbesii was able to border the puzzle of smells on him. No wonder the boy seemed to be sleepwalking.

"Saved the best for last, eh? It's a good thing my Nerine is such a patient girl."

"I've got something for her."

The reply was almost _too_ prompt. Forbesii raised an eyebrow and clenched his fingers ever so slightly. He relaxed, then made himself relax some more when Rin lifted the bag in his hand.

"Did you want to deliver it yourself?"

Rin looked at him with one emotion he couldn't place, then all the others. It wouldn't have been too much harder to connect the rest of the puzzle, but Forbesii was perfectly willing to let Rin sort out the pieces for him.

"I don't know…I don't want to, but…if I…but I promised I'd make sure she got it. But sir, I know you'll…and I know you said-"

"So it isn't a present from _you_, it's a loan from one of her friends? That cooking girl with the green hair, yes?"

"Yes. Asa."

"Yes. Asa. _She_ let you off pretty easy, hm?"

Rin was looking at him with a kind of terrified awe again. Good.

"You could give the bag to me so that I could give it to her, that would be the safe thing to do. Safety is respectful."

Forbesii forced himself to relax a little more when the bag shook, then didn't shake in the boy's clenched fingers. He continued as if they were simply picking out ice cream flavors.

"_But!_ On the other hand, bringing it to her yourself would be the honorable thing to do, the _brave_ thing to do. Cowardice certainly _isn't_ respectful."

"Yeah…" Rin gazed off toward the mansion that protected the future of the Devil world better than he knew.

Forbesii saw no need to let the kid know that, of course.

"It's up to you, son. Maybe the star is getting tired, maybe we are. Maybe love means being brave, maybe it means you don't have to be."

The king of Devils had called him 'son' generically. Or not. At least the boy would have to ponder as much as he did. Really, he preferred to control _how_ rather than _whether_ things came and went. If his thoughts were going to crash his own parties he may as well raise a glass, drain it, and throw it.

"Stars can make us do anything, Rin, but that can't make us be anything but ourselves."

The memory, of Sia saying something very similar in a very different way, drifted across Rin's face like a cloud, like a cool washcloth. The change it made in his expression was faint, but undeniable. The real cloud that drifted over both of them was just excessive, though. Forbesii would have a word with the Weathers about their subtleties later. Rin didn't notice the ominous synchronicity, and didn't exactly forget _or_ remember what happened the last time he let a sudden flash of curiosity speak for itself.

"Um…your highness, sir, why aren't you inside with Nerine?"

'Damn,' as might be expected, doesn't quite play in the same ballpark or carry the same stick with Devils. Still, when they say the word out loud, it's rarely for the sake of sarcasm or irony.

"Damn." Forbesii hung his head as if the word had been a weight off his shoulders.

'Damn,' he thought to himself.

'Damn, this kid is trouble.'

'Damn, I'm starting to like this kid.'

"She's locked me out."

Rin shot quicker and quicker and more confused glances between the front door and its supposed master till Forbesii sighed. Just sighed, for whatever it was worth. Heck, he figured, Gods already took enough credit for human revelation.

"Listen carefully, Rin. You've seen what my daughter's magic can do, but you really don't know anything."

Rin blinked and swallowed, but Forbesii saw, or maybe smelled, that he was searching for courage, not a shield, not an escape. He put his arm around him and genuinely smiled at the idea of him as a son-in-law. As he walked him to the door, the one next to one that had already taken him in, it became easier and easier to speak frankly. It made him remember how he'd felt around his own loves' fathers, how much he'd wanted their approval, but moreso their honesty.

"Nerine hadn't been born yet the last time the Lemon star passed by."

Forbesii could actually feel the boy paying attention to him, but he could also see that it wasn't that long a walk to the door. There was no time to make the story timeless.

"No. I'm sorry, Rin. Let me skip ahead."

"Sir?" Rin turned toward him, but kept walking.

"I know I've already asked a favor of you for her sake once, and I still appreciate you giving her a chance to feel she had you to herself. This is different. She _will_ have you this time, most likely however she wants to. What she might make you do…I'm going to give you more to worry about on top of that, something you have to know. Even if all you understand is that it's the only secret I've ever kept from my daughter."

Forbesii remembered to breathe.

"Please don't tell Nerine this, but her mother and I actually went searching for the Lemon star so that she could be conceived in its light."

Rin made a few tiny noises between their last few steps to the door, urging Forbesii to go on. It hurt Forbesii to know that even he might get so close and still want to turn back, that he, the king of Devils, didn't want to honor the deal made whenever you start a secret. He knew he would finish telling it, and he knew he would trust this kid with this key, or lock, to his most precious and dangerous treasure. But he didn't want to.

"Was she?"

Wow. The kid actually spoke up. It was like he'd averted the Primula catastrophe all over again. He made it feel easy, however he made it look.

"I don't know. The Lemon star _does_ erase memories of its wake in most people …but of all people, _all_ people, as far as we know, no one has ever certifiably been conceived under it. By the time we knew we were pregnant there was no way to be sure if it happened before or after, in its light or just around it."

Forbesii didn't like the thought of Rin watching him revisit and reform so many uncertainties across his face, but turning away would be worse. He demanded and Rin deserved better.

A good old 'say one half directly, then the other half while walking away' maneuver would do quite nicely, though.

"Knock, and maybe you'll find out. I'm guessing that today is either what I get for succeeding…or for trying."

It would have irreparably damaged Forbesii's sense of royal timing to know that Rin was looking at said door rather than said doorman when the big finish came.

A few minutes of Rin's own private hesitations passed on and away with Forbesii's footsteps, wispy things like ghosts sucked through the very door they were trying to spook him from. Forbesii was already gone when he turned around for… A smile? A thumbs up? Anything to make sense of whatever the Devil king had said about succeeding.

Nothing? Rin felt like laughing, like calling out 'what the heck do I do if she doesn't answer.'

"Or she does and no one sees me again," he mumbled to himself.

Memories of Nerine answered via her confessions by the swing set, their swing set. They answered in vivid contrast of how scary she was when defending him and how scared she seemed to be of him. He hadn't yet needed to suppress the ones that followed, of her in the lingerie store, or at the beach, and nearly knocked himself off his feet trying to fight them off so suddenly. When he won, he took those fists and managed to transition them into knocking on the door.

Rin still closed his eyes, though.

Nothing happened.

He knocked again. Again, eyes closed.

He waited, eyes open, at least. Then, at last, he knocked without even blinking. Then he leaned back to search for movement near the windows. Then he realized that he was inside.

With his back against the inside of the front door now, the handle grinding into his hip, the handle right there for the taking, for the fleeing, Rin tried not to panic. The house seemed empty, which first made it easier to calm himself, then, of course, impossible.

Rin had the bag raised, ready to holler out something along the lines of: "Sorry to bother you, Nerine. Just dropping off a book Asa wanted to loan you. See you later."

No one ever asked if Rin regretted that he didn't, which was good, because he might have had to answer them.

Whether or not it was the Right Thing to Do, Rin didn't ask. He just lowered the bag, ashamed of himself, then ashamed for being ashamed, and so on, rolling a snowball of self deprecation all the way to what looked like the sitting room. It wasn't quite the one he remembered, though. For instance, the coffee table had been clear, not mirrored. Rin put the bag on top of his reflection and pulled his hand over his face all the way to the back of his neck.

This had to be something like what Sia had set up for him. Yet this didn't feel like Nerine was setting up a 'special surprise'. It felt more like a trap. Trap? That felt like more than just a rude thing to think about Nerine (no matter how much her father had given the opposite of a reassuring blessing). Somehow, thinking that he was in a trap felt like the bait itself. Maybe this whole thing was a test.

Maybe his society just made their adolescents spend too much time in school.

Whatever gym classes had done for his reflexes, it didn't prepare him for the book to start shaking, rattling the mirrored surface of the table, louder and louder till Rin sat back into the couch, realized he should have jumped over it, and pushed himself back to compensate. His feet in the air, his head thumped and throbbing against the floor, Rin just barely had enough flight in him to go fetal as a hundred jagged reflections swarmed toward the ceiling.

He put his hands in his armpits, waiting for the cuts to open, to realize that he'd already been disemboweled. The shattering sound didn't die away, it seemed instead to level out, to focus. After a full minute without even a scratch, Rin dared a look and saw the whole table, now in splinters as well as increasingly tiny shards, swirling at the ceiling in an unseen blender. It was not done doing whatever it was doing, and this made Rin want to tip the couch again, this time all the way over him, but to do that he'd have to get off the floor, and the only thing that was going to get him off the floor was the part of him that found part of the display really quite pretty.

There was a woman standing where the table had been. She wore a loose, Romanesque dress, all drapes and folds over curves and Curves. A wreath of silver and obsidian branches held her hair, a white silk veil hid her face. It should have been easy to find some part of this more than pretty, but there was no part of Rin that could conceive of this woman as Nerine. Therefore, he ducked, quite impressively (by the standard of any generically cowardly animal, at least) when the woman raised her hand toward him. He didn't notice that she had the bag with the book in her other hand, but that probably wouldn't have made a difference.

Oddly enough, it was a feeling of intense heat that made Rin look again rather than finish tipping the couch over himself. He wasn't surprised that the heat was coming from her, or even that it was coming from an orb of swirling liquid fire in her hand, just mesmerized to see that the fire was fire-colored, rather than the sort-of-colored sort-of-fire that magic usually made. The heat quickly went from rural campfire to industrial furnace, but Rin only blinked at his sweat as the shimmering, singing remains of the table whirl pooled into the forge. From this came a molten sphere that pulsated as it condensed to the size of a beach melon. As the mix swirled blacker, and blacker, Rin could only see the solid result as a cannonball.

Nerine, or whoever it was that spoke like her, cradled it as gently as an egg.

"I'm so sorry Rin, I should have warned you. There must be a hole in the bag."

The heat dissipated in synch with the softening hesitations of Nerine's voice.

Naturally, none of what she started to mumble about 'certain demon craftsmanships not mixing well' made him any calmer, whoever was saying it. Now that it was so very _like_ Nerine, Rin was doubly certain that it wasn't. He couldn't quite ask 'who are you,' and certainly not 'where's Nerine,' but he could grip the couch to keep from fleeing, or fainting.

"Rin I…_I_…"

That _definitely_ wasn't the way Nerine let her body use her voice. She sounded the way Kaede had when…or Mayumi when she…but Rin's hands were still firmly on the couch, and her hands were divided between the new table-piece and the bag.

"I'm sorry that I'm hiding myself from you like this; for locking everyone out, for covering my face. I know you and father must be worried but… it's safer this way."

What little Rin had learned about today's Star feature crept up his spine, straightening it a little, but mostly with electric currents.

"I am too…I do not want to boast, and I certainly don't ever want to push you away but-"

"The sun's setting, Nerine," Rin gulped, trying to interrupt what he felt with what he thought he knew, "the Lemon star is almost gone."

She slouched a little bit. Rin even smiled to think it was relief. He even let go of the couch and thought about walking over to hug her. She looked so much like a pitiful rather than terrifying ghost. All his friends were precious to him, and he had to be there for them even if they were suitors, especially if they looked like they were in distress. Nerine, it had to be Nerine, was about to cry. It had to be Nerine because she was so likely to cry when making herself vulnerable in front of him.

"Oh Rin," Nerine giggled…maybe the way the real Nerine giggled, Rin couldn't really say because Nerine almost never giggled.

Rin's smile didn't disappear, but only because he'd frozen with all the grace of that cowardly animal he'd moved like moments before.

"Rin. Rin. Wonderful, sweet Rin."

Nerine tossed the sphere onto the couch and the couch was swallowed. The speed of it was so intense that Rin notice the wind of its passing more than the sound of its implosion. The sphere, satiated with a double helping of furniture, thumped on the floor and only rolled a little toward him.

"Is that what they told you?"

Rin wanted to hide under that couch now. He absolutely did not care how silly it would make him look. He actually wondered if the sphere might suck him up in a flurry of bones and blood if he asked it nicely.

"Did they say we'd all be safe if we just stayed inside today?"

It might seriously be time to consider asking where Nerine was. Only crazy people sounded this much like laughing and crying at the same time. Rin managed to back away a few steps. She reached out, tenderly, soothingly. This at least made her seem like Nerine again, which, again, helped at fist…till he thought about it, which made it worse.

"Wait, Rin. You don't understand. The star isn't leaving till it gets what it wants. That's why I…"

Nerine reached into the bag and pulled out the book. Maybe it wasn't Nerine, maybe it really was, but she definitely did NOT have anything of Asa's.

The stories about 'evil books' found in secret old libraries, about ancient tomes bound in human skin, none of them could have steeled Rin for the experience. The thing in Nerine's hand, held like a disappointing inventory report, looked held together by a dozen conveyer belts all going in different directions. The belts were made alternately of rusty metal and rotting blackish seaweed he couldn't believe he couldn't smell.

"I knew the star might come while I was here…in your world."

Nerine, he was pretty sure it really was her now, or at least sure that whoever was in front of him had meant 'here…for you.' That fit Nerine.

He hoped.

He hopped in the air a little.

Nerine had held the book in both hands, arms out, chest up, and also out. Arousal was the first thing he should have prepared for when he found himself on the other side of the door, but it was the last thing he was ready for, so much so the first sign of tightness in his pants nearly made him jump out of his shoes.

"I tried to get rid of this book, but I couldn't. The only thing that works is a loan, and even then it was difficult. I disguised this as a cook book and asked Asa to have you bring it to me. I had to _want_ it back, you see. I loved the idea of an excuse to see you alone, even if-"

Rin definitely knew something strange and scary was going on, and was even following most of it. Unfortunately Rin was also still waiting to see how Nerine would try to …'engage' him. Engage. That was funny. She and Sia both wanted him to be their husband. But Nerine was here now. But it was wrong to think it was okay not to look at her face just because she was wearing a veil.

"Rin."

He looked up at where her face probably was, ready to say he was listening, but he looked down at her chest again when she held the book to it. Something so wrong- looking should not be touching something so...

"_So…_"

"I'm so sorry. I know this must be confusing," Nerine sounded ready to cry, "or does it just sound crazy," then laugh.

"Nerine, what…what _is _that thing!"

Expressing his fear and revulsion so blatantly felt right, even Right. Holding so much back had been making it hard for him to breath. It felt good to breathe and better to breathe a lot, even if he still expected anywhere near that book to stink. He even held his breath when Nerine opened it.

"The truth."

Rin held his breath a little tighter and tried a little harder to see Nerine's face behind the veil.

"This book has a lot of angry, dangerous magic inside, but mostly it's insane. My people haven't made books like this for a long time. Maybe that's why no one noticed, or no one worried, that it also contained the truth about the Lemon star."

"But," Rin started pointing at the book again, even more nervously this time, "why would you give it to Asa?"

"Books like this, Rin. Once you want what they have to offer, you can't un-want them. I hoped Asa might just forget about it, but I had to hope just as much that you'd bring it."

"It's…it's so-" Rin thought of a few words that were bad enough, but couldn't say them in Nerine's direction. She still hung her head as if she'd felt them, and skimmed forward through what he saw only as blank, aged paper.

"If father knew about it, or what was inside, I might never get to see you again."

"It's so-" Rin tried again, but failed even more, just enough to skip ahead.

"Nerine, why go through all this? How does it help you or anyone for you to not have the book, or to have me bring it to you when I think it's something else?"

"That's the magic of it, Rin. I didn't know if you'd bring it when the star was here, but I knew somehow it'd be all that could get inside if I locked even my father out. The book and the star, they're both made from magic, possibly even from the same magic, and magic isn't something you just pull from something or someone else."

"But-"

"Magic is sexual, Rin. It's a combining of things."

Rin was quite finished wondering if Nerine was Nerine every time her tone changed. He was even nearly finished suppressing his desire to slap that book away, take off her veil and-

"That star-"

That voice might have been Nerine's, but Rin was entirely back to being too afraid to ask.

"-is the great testament to Lust Itself."

Rin thought back to what the Kings had told him about it being found near the destination of the star the two worlds had made together. He remembered what Forbesii had said about no one ever being conceived under it. He could feel the cracks in this knowledge forming, spreading across his skull in anticipation of Nerine's hammer.

"My father, his father before him, and on and on, they were all told that the Lemon star was there when they went up to dedicate their star of truce. There _was_ a star already in the spot they were going to plant theirs, but it had just begun forming between the time they left and the time they arrived. They took the birth of this new star as a benevolent omen and agreed to add to it, to feed it with the star they'd made…but some part of them must have wanted to feed the new star to _their_ star."

Nerine turned the page. Rin gulped and tried to slow his breath to muffle his heart.

"The Lemon star was born of these conflicting desires, but of desires most of all. I didn't take control of the crew; the crew realized what they really wanted. They wanted Their new life to…dominate the Universe's new life. They wanted control. They wanted to lose control. They did, and they made the Lemon star."

Rin could smell Nerine now. He could also mostly see that she was Nerine under the veil, and definitely nothing but Nerine under the robe.

"When their star was born…they looked at it, and it looked _back_."

Nerine was shivering with cold, or fear, or excitement. Or Rin was just holding so still that everything else was made to shiver. She slammed the book shut and he started with a gasp that, to Rin's redoubling fear, Nerine seemed to inhale.

"It spoke to them, and they didn't speak _back_. It knew it wasn't what they'd wanted, and so it didn't _want_ to want them. And so it _had_ to have them," Nerine spoke to everything, around and inside her, that she loathed and pitied, "It goes where and when it wants. And while it's there it Wants forever…but only speaks once!"

She threw the book down and Rin bit a tiny bit of his tongue off. He stepped away from the book between them. She stepped forward.

"Whenever it comes to one of our three worlds it picks someone and gives them a choice, they can either give the star all the children they _would have _ever made, or the one child they do make with its help."

Rin was nursing his tongue, and that saved him from enunciating what his curiosity made him say. It kept him from wondering aloud whether Forbesii knew more about the truth in that book than she realized. This whole revelation had even more power to scare the arousal into him when it should damn well be scaring it out. Thinking about _all_ of it was enough to do the trick.

"Nerine…you-"

His blood, all of it, seemed stolen into the table piece. It was a relief until it stole his voice too. He clasped at his mouth and felt only missing tongue.

She took his hand away from his mouth and held it in one of her own. He saw the dots of blood smear.

"Because the star is so unpredictable, and can make people so…powerful, because it so often takes peoples memories; when people disappear no one considers the sacrifices-"

Nerine reached her other hand toward him. It glowed with the unnatural, lovely fire he was more used to seeing, if never so close.

"-the _deals_ being made."

The ball of magic spread itself over her hand like a glove. She held his cheek and it felt warm. She slid her finger between his lips, over his tongue, and he wanted more so instantly and so intensely that he almost bit down.

"I'm not sure why the star chose me, but I can guess. In fact my father probably told you. Still, I have no right to do this."

Nerine was referring to what she was planning to do, rather than what she was doing at that moment. Rin couldn't think that far into it, but she had his attention either way.

"There are two things, which means there are three things, always three things, that we can do to send the Lemon star on its way empty handed. I don't think anyone from any world could deal with more than one day of it."

Rin could definitely let Nerine scare him and stimulate him senseless like this indefinitely, but he didn't complain when she pulled her hand away.

"The first two options involve offering either myself to it or…our child to it…someday."

Nerine dropped the last parts into softer and softer whispers, but that softness made them sharp as…let's say 'shards of coffee table'…in Rin's ears.

"I thought maybe, if not _our_ child, then…but I don't think I can do that."

Rin felt his hands reaching toward her and he stepped back to make doubly sure they grabbed his skull instead.

"Nerine…you can't be-"

She lowered her head, then kept lowering it as she spoke. Her voice bore down for strength even as breath escaped, replaced by the frightening thing he had taken for someone other than Nerine.

"Like I said; there are three things. The star is not used to going more than a day, more than a daylight without one of the two choices."

Nerine reached for him again, but not his face. Lower. Not his chest, either. Deeper. Her palm directly over his heart, Rin tried to slow it. He gave up when she dug her nails in. It was only even beating half as hard as he wanted to grasp her.

"If we can make…magic, make it like they did before, we can make a new star ourselves." The princess took another full, round, voluptuous breath to reassure herself. The movement didn't quite offer Rin any calm.

"I am more powerful than Sia. Today I may even be more powerful than Primula. I am more powerful because I _want_ you, Rin. I know I can't keep this veil on, but I know that if I take it off you might…want me…so much that you forget yourself."

Rin actually thought about what to say. He thought about it with everything he had. The quieting parts that shouted over him, the Right and True things, all twisted around each other. For a change, they wove into cords, reeling out from his chest rather than knotting around it.

_So much that you forget yourself._

He had a response, but he couldn't reconcile the 'too late' with 'no way' side of the wooden nickel on the new tip of his tongue. Flattery didn't reassure people, friendly or flirty. In that he felt assured. In that his fear began to seem respectful, Right as it would have to be to take away the pain of desire.

A small dot darkened on Nerine's veil, lighting to the balloon he'd tried so hard to escape in.

"That's why I'm so afraid, Rin. That's why I always try so hard to be the nicest, humblest person I can be. I don't want to force you to love me. I don't want to _bedevil_ you into taking me. Even if I know it's the only way to help everyone _and_ be honest with myself, I'd rather die than make you anyone but you."

There was nothing he could do. The desire to comfort and the desire to conquer her had crashed at the center of him. After all he'd been through today, all the guilt and all the joy, the two made a zero, not a three. He had been so proud of himself for doing the right thing with Asa, but now there was nothing to do. It would all be wrong.

Another dark spot fell against her veil.

"I can't do this to you, or to anyone else who loves you…to Sia."

Nerine thrust her hands to her sides, fists shaking. Rin's fear was so instant and deep that he couldn't even recognize it as his own. Her voice became bitter, but she seemed to be drinking it with her teeth rather than spitting it out.

"The Gods…when all is said and done they've always been more powerful because people have always wanted promises. Promises not even for their lives, but for their deaths. They have no claim on honesty, or compassion. 'A promise is a promise'…whether or not it ends up broken."

Something like a sob of new or dying strength shook more spots onto the veil. Rin was already helpless, ashes colder than the stick that stirred them.

"I want you, Rin. I want _us_ to be happy. _I_ want to be happy. I don't want to make promises, but I have to tell you the truth. I want you, Rin, but I _don't_ want you to make a deal under pressure. And…I don't…want to have to _throw_ myself at you."

The sob she ended on, a deeper more complete shame, was a big drop in a bigger bucket. It wouldn't have mattered now if she did throw herself at him, Rin thought. It wouldn't matter if he'd lowered his head enough so that he couldn't see Nerine raise hers. He knew he couldn't deal with any of the Lemon star options she'd described, but 'none of the above' didn't feel like it had a bottom to its pit. He felt he would just keep falling.

"What do _you_ want, Rin?"

Maybe the Honest Thing to Say and The Right Thing to Do had reached some truce. Maybe they'd killed each other. He felt he didn't deserve to cry for either of them, and just cried for himself.

"I just-just wish things could go back to how they were. I wish everyone could just be happy."

"I'm not a God, Rin, I'm a Devil. Don't tell me what you wish, tell me what you _want_."

"I want to go home."

Rin's teeth were chattering now. He remembered the day his parents died, the day he let Kaede find out that it had been her fault. He didn't feel as he did then, alone in the rain, he felt only the numbness that came afterward. He felt like a helpless little boy.

"Very well. Do what you must."

With an effect equal and so opposite it made him waver on his feet, the numbness turned itself, and him, into nothing. Nerine had spoken with an honesty and acceptance so pure, so gentle, that Rin didn't feel guilty to begin walking toward the door. He felt nothing, but more importantly no guilt. He didn't wonder if he'd really heard her whisper 'as shall I.'

"Go home-"

Kaede's neck, Sia's hair, Mayumi's leg, Asa's face, the challenge in the eyes of the kings and Itsuki. Her voice returned those moments to him, floundering guilt crushed beneath the shadow of true weakness. Sharp, unrelenting, undeniable, Nerine's voice grasped every broken part of today, of his life, and melted it in her hands. All he had to do was turn to see what she had for him. He could do nothing else.

Her hands were empty, but they moved up to her veil so surely, pulled it back and tossed her hair so slowly, that Rin rejected time to focus only on the space between them.

"-if you can."

_MEANWHILE! _

"Geez! They make all their episodes seem like the last episode. I'm always so stressed!"

"I'm sorry, Sia. I thought some TV would take our minds off…"

Primula looked over her shoulder with a pout in her eyes.

"I like this show."

"You're never…nevuuur. Er. Bur. Er. Urp. You're never too old for kid shows, sweetheart."

Sia, for once, didn't react to her father's embarrassing behavior. It was his just as drunk, but not half as festive partner in crime that she glared at. Forbesii had returned just as suddenly as he'd disappeared and proceeded to turn yet another tea party into a sake contest. There was something more to Nerine locking him out than just the star enhancing everyone's magic. Maybe he was keeping them all here, keeping her here to make sure she wasn't home if Rin came back to her.

"Excuse me."

She tried not to think about anybody watching her as she left for…the kitchen? Where was she going? At the corner leading down the hall she stopped and looked back.

The king of the Devils was investigating his sake saucers, her father was snoring or talking like a pig in his sleep, and Rin's little girls were watching TV. Sia clutched her stomach. She wanted to smack herself for the outright meanness of her thoughts and hoped that no one saw her dash for the bathroom.

Managing to stop herself before she slammed the door, she locked it as delicately as possible. Wanting Rin to be with her so bad got her close enough to crying that she cried for her mother instead. Truly, she wished her mother _had_ abandoned her duties and come, even if she only paid attention to her father. Just her being there would help somehow. Sia had been closing her eyes so tightly that she shook a little as she realized she'd closed the door without turning the light on.

The click of the switch seemed loud, her face in the mirror dull. She took a deep rejuvenating breath to push her tears down, but that only pushed them out. Another nick of time caught her hand before she smeared her makeup. Some of her nail polish had already chipped. Green looked so good on her. It was the only color every part of her liked.

Hands braced on the sink, Sia looked for strength, found more tears, some nausea, and then Rin. It hurt to think of him as brave for walking away from her, hurt worse to think of what more she could have done. Eventually, though, she made it over her bridge, let it turn back into a wall, and then smashed it down.

"Kikiyo," she whispered.

The TV outside made stock audience noises.

Sia looked into the mirror, into her own eyes. She tried to imitate what she recalled as that almost spiteful, mostly lascivious expression.

"Come on. I know you're in there."

She thought of Rin touching her. She touched herself and thought harder. She went so far as to imagine the other girls crying. When this made her start crying again, or rather, start crying without holding back, it at least became easier to breath. Her hands felt stronger along the sink even as the rest of her crumbled.

"I don't know what to do. Please. If we work together I know we can save Rin."

"_Idiot._"

It usually sounded like liquid crystal when Kikiyo spoke to her, an echo held in place. This time her voice was flat, making the mirror even more like a window. Kikiyo didn't move, she just crossed her arms and lowered her head, all the way down, and a little to the right. Sia could still see her eyes, though, even if they were closed.

"Please, Kikiyo. I can't do this alone."

"Do WHAT alone?" She hissed. "Rin doesn't need to be 'saved' from anything."

"Kikiyo…" Sia's lip trembled.

"You don't want to talk to _me_. You just want _him_."

"I need you, Kikiyo!"

"What you need is to let Rin decide for himself. Isn't that what you told me?"

Sia sniffed, and gulped, reaching for the tissue.

"I…he…you're right," Sia managed between blows, "he can stay strong. He'll make it through this."

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?"

The sympathy, even sadness under Kikiyo jab lifted Sia's eyes, and Kikiyo's in turn.

"Don't you understand? 'Making it through,' 'holding back,' that will just make it worse, especially with her."

"But she…she wouldn't-"

"You said so yourself, she's the dangerous one."

"I didn't mean-"

"Yes you did. You know how the magics work. You know what will happen. The more he tries to push her away, the stronger she'll get. They're going to-"

"Stop. Stop it."

Sia had so intended to yell instead of whisper that she put a hand over her mouth. A few green tears painted her palm before she reached toward the light switch.

"I love you Sia. I love you so much that I love Rin too, so much that I even love Nerine. Go break them up if you want to, but don't try to blame me…"

Sia pressed her palm over the entire switch, muffling the click.

"…or the star."

It took a few moments feeling around in the dark before Sia found the tissues again. It took too few to get to the last one in the box. When she opened the door she almost collided with Kaede.

"Sia?" Kaede asked, fist still raised to knock on the door.

"Oh! Um, Kaede, I-my makeup was bothering me."

The ultimate host didn't smile as she should have. She didn't even try to.

"Who were you talking to?"

Sia looked into her tissue, crumpled, green but mostly black, and wished she could have hid her whole face in it.

"I'm sorry, Kaede."

"You…you're father's asleep. So is Nerine's."

"Figures," Sia tried to sniffle up a laugh.

She tried not to look directly at Kaede, thinking that might keep things quiet, but through all the day's treaties of silence she could feel a roar on the horizon.

"Sia…did you-"

Kaede wrung her voice through the apron bunched in her fists. Sia began to reach for some part of her Godhood that could hold Kaede's question back, hold Kaede up. Delicate or strong, she didn't know, only that Kaede must have it. Her hand, still a little green, almost touched the tip of her orange hair before Sia snatched it back, as if burnt. Kaede's voice was so cold, so despairing.

"Did you take Rin?"

Sia let her hand fall. She let her shoulders follow and waited for the tears to follow, but they didn't.

"I tried."

Kaede closed into herself a little, but Sia could actually feel her relaxing in the next moments. She looked up with tears, but also with a tiny smile holding back a gigantic blush.

"S-so did I."

It took long enough for Sia to figure out why Kaede was anxious about her hands, about one hand over the other, just long enough for the princess's sudden gasp of surprise and good natured jealousy to turn them both into a teeter totter of blush and giggle.

"Kaede?"

They both gulped and stood stock straight to face Primula. They even hid their hands behind them as if caught red handed instead of red-faced.

"Primula! Um, is your show over?"

"Would you like to get dinner started?" Kaede asked, glancing toward the TV sounds still loitering about.

"Nerine's house…"

The air seemed to be jumping, racing into the older girls' lungs. It moved even quicker into their eyes as they followed Primula's only mildly urgent index finger into the empty lot next door.

_!ELIHWNAEM _

_ 'So was she super hot?'_

_ 'Did her eyes light up?'_

_ 'What was it like to look at her?'_

When re-telling the story up to that point Rin had needed to genuinely collect himself so many times that, after he finally came to terms with the memory, he'd started automatically pausing for dramatic effect. He'd only ever answer something worded like the last question, and only with another question.

'Do you know what it's like to ejaculate and urinate at the same time?'

He'd also never let on that it wasn't a rhetorical question.

The veil had floated off and gently down between them. It was only during those seconds that Rin could feel the pain in his backside from collapsing. Only his closest advisors knew this, but Forbesii loved metered speeches done in sync with the steps taken toward a fallen opponent. Nerine would have done daddy proud.

"Well? Is this what you wanted to see? The Devil in the _Flesh_? Did you come for my sweet, meek personality, or was it just to climb the greatest mountains in all three worlds?"

She, Nerine, the demure demon princess, clutched the greatest mountains in all three worlds with both hands. Rin gasped in all the Awe. How ever little actual air he'd managed to gasp with, she simply swung her hands into fits at her sides, continuing louder. (She had also made a vulgar metaphor. Nerine never even made bland metaphors, but the startling strangeness of that was mostly overshadowed.)

"It certainly wasn't for one of my _fucking omelets!_"

As far as Rin knew, omelets, very tasty ones, in fact, were the first and only dish Nerine learned how to make.

As far as Rin knew it would take more than a whole constellation of stars to make Nerine say a bad word. Those times when she'd gone a little overboard in protecting him had been scary. Damn scary. Still, he never really wondered about how much scarier she might be if she really got pissed.

Did he have to wonder if she was not just pissed, but pissed _at him_?

No, he had to wonder if she realized that she'd made him…there wasn't even a word for it. 'Double mess' himself? And at the same time? Seriously, he'd paid attention in sex Ed; it was supposed to be physiologically impossible.

Speaking of science out the window, looking at Nerine was still like looking into the sun. The difference was that the blinding sensation went through the rest of his body while his eyes felt only the throb echoed in his sex. Nerine's very presence was Lust as Strength. Her eyes had in fact changed, from red eyes to eyes made only Red, the heat and the force not of life, but of Living. Rin felt a savage charge with each step she took toward him and found he couldn't move anything but his mouth. Or rather, he couldn't keep his mouth from moving, lolling open to cast a lazy string of drool onto his chest.

"Licorice, the better one, I ATE her. Even if she crawled down my throat I still _ate_ her. And now…I'm going to eat you. Then I'll take the lemon star, then your world, then mine, then the gods and it'll be just me and I'll make a _better_ version of you!"

She was getting more terrifying, but she was also bending more toward him. Urethra lightning struck twice, and Rin clutched his crotch with both hands, which only gave encore to the overwhelming sensation. Every climax in his short pubescent life danced through his memory like a parade of lost or discarded childhood toys. He heard his yelp echo throughout the mansion and closed his eyes. It was similarly helpless reflex that kept them closed tight.

"Nerine…you're-"

"I know I'm scaring you, Rin. I want to."

He heard the movement of the fabric on her body more than her footsteps. He felt more than heard the desperation swirl back around her voice, from molten silver back into glass.

"If I can do that, then I'll be worthy to love you. If I can show you the worst part of me, then this won't just be a crush. I won't just be some pining tragedy. Tomorrow I'll be mortified by how I've acted today, but at least I'll have acted. At least I'll have done something worthy of you."

"Y-You-" Rin barely managed to attach a word to his breath.

"Say 'Devil', Rin. Say 'demon,' say 'monster'. Say whatever you can to separate me from you. Can't you understand; _I_ don't have anyone to make a deal with…and I won't have anyone else sacrificing themselves for me."

"But you don't owe her anything. You don't owe her anything because she didn't _ask_. You don't owe her gratitude because that would cheapen why she did it. You don't owe her for saving you any more than _I_ have to love _you_ because _you_ love _me_."

It didn't feel like the counterattack outburst with Asa, mostly because he barely realized he'd talked (almost shouted, actually) until he felt Nerine stop approaching him. He had hurt her just by half-saying the worst hypothetical thing he could. The uncontainable pleasure started to implode back into a dull mass in his chest. His memories, though, orbited him less like toys than model ships, sailing around what he'd just said, churning it into something he could stand up on.

Rin caught his breath, held it, and swallowed. He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands, shaking now above his still spreading stain. They closed tighter.

"I swore, when I got here, I wouldn't-"

"Because I'm the delicate one? Or because I'm the dangerous one?"

Nerine's voice was still a deadly sword, but at least now it felt like she was holding it between them rather than at him.

"Dammit. I don't know. I don't know anything. Should I build a tower that can just get taller and taller with every girl I treat with common courtesy?

For all he knew better, for as powerful as his anger (not not NOT the sexy kind) felt, he knew he wanted to open his eyes and look at her again, to look at her body. He wanted her, but he had to keep himself.

"There's just no way to win!"

He glanced a moment of hope that his weakness was strong enough to push her away.

She took another step closer.

Whatever was holding him back was also holding him down.

"I told you, Rin. I'm a Devil."

He opened his eyes when she had bent down toward him. With one hand on the floor, one on his knee, Nerine had him transfixed. She was impossible. Desire and anger felt suddenly so very alike.

"Not a girl with cute ears and magic tricks, a Devil; I know how to bend the rules."

Nerine closed her eyes and removed half the light from the room. Her hair receded. Her hair grew. Horns sprouted from her forehead, curving triumphs of platinum bone. Her hair flooded the room. Rin looked at her body, at his hand reaching toward the looser cloth at the lower shoulder. Her hair swirled. Nerine opened her eyes with a smile made of teeth.

Rin did not remember falling asleep and would not remember dreaming, but when he awoke he was reclined in a chair that was either air or jelly or-

How was it holding his head out of the water?

Hot water. Almost too hot. Almost.

How did he get in a giant bath?

An impulse to stand bounced harmlessly off an insurmountable wall of comfort. The impulse tried again, inspired by his completely sudden complete nakedness. And a very valiant effort it was.

The new room looked very much like early 20th century western opulence, but the bath waters fell and spouted from of gargoyles instead of cherubs, the structure made of onyx and pewter instead of marble and gold. The walls around him were tall glass doors, and all that stood between him and a dense jungle stretching to every horizon. He was too busy wondering how the inflatable or magical black stone could be so comfortable, and where his perfect or demonic hostess had gone, to wonder where he was.

Face into his hands, Rin reclined, yielded. Lying there, letting himself feel, then appreciate, then marvel at Nerine's illusion, he waited for a thought to rise above the brawl in his head. The only thing that came to him was the water around him. Every time he thought of calling out, or getting up, he thought of what he would do next. The blank thoughts that answered were like massaging hands. The cleansing water around his crotch was like a very dirty mouth.

Rin took in air, all the air and more. Warm, relaxing water or not, drained and drained again or more, Rin shouldn't have been able to grow like a sponge capsule animal. He shouldn't have been able to get as hard as coral. The water wasn't salty, but his mouth was as he tried to stay quiet, as he tried to see what was in the water, what in the world was making him feel so good.

The sensation had no source he could see. Yet, face drawn forcefully up at the celestial mural on the ceiling, its vastness and excess fitting the room perfectly, Rin relaxed as constellations began to join together in shapes he could not describe. He relaxed till his face was almost submerged. He relaxed and relaxed till his face shot up and his hands shot down. The remaining air was so thin, the water around his hands, around his sex, was so thick. Trying to, then trying NOT to imagine an invisible, underwater Nerine only made his climax more overwhelming. When Rin finally caught his breath he was almost too empty to jump up.

"I thought about a hot springs, but that's a little cliché."

Almost. Almost flight again, but definitely a hearty splash.

"Relax. Rin. We're just getting started."

Her voice had seemed to rise from the bath's own steam. The bath, smooth across the surface, rose up in her own form.

"_Oh Hell._"

Rin's helplessly sincere response seemed to flow seamlessly into the conjuration. With hands at the edges of the bath, desperate but no sturdier than fingernails at the chin of a purring cat, Rin watched every molecule take shape. It was the exact likeness, the perfect mold of a naked Nerine. Steamy, literally, it looked down at him with a shy smile. Its voice was playful, filtered through a mixture of surface bubbles and area fan buzz.

"What do you think? Mistress Nerine made her myself."

Rin lifted his foot dumbly. It passed through her leg like a slow waterfall. Not thinking, not thinking at all, he moved his foot upward. The Neri-nymph gasped and moaned at once, little droplets falling from its fingertips as they half-grasped the air. It giggled as he yanked his foot away. Its throat, Rin noticed, contained a mix of water and something else.

"When I learned the Lemon star was coming, I stole Mayumi's dream lover."

The sculpture looked at him coquettishly as Nerine's voice came not from within, but from beyond the steam. Rin squinted to see if she were at the opposite end of the tub.

"You what?" Rin asked, exhausted and confused, then exhausted and frightened when he realized what she was talking about. He asked again, a lot more quietly.

"You _what_?"

"I could say I 'commandeered' him. I'd be within my rights. I do have sovereignty over _that_ half of her, after all.

Rin watched as the Neri-nymph stepped back deeper into the (or back into) water, his mind flailing at the implications of this till it reached the other side.

The steam dissipated even though the water temperature remained the same, if not warmer. Opposite him was Nerine, sitting on the edge of the tub. Her hair was held up in a towel, that towel held by her horns. Her body was being covered with suds by the two-dimensional shadow of a man, made not from darkness, but from the rainbow skin of a soap bubble. It looked at Rin, or at least turned what he supposed was its face toward him. Rin would eventually be able to articulate that it was somehow both smug, and sad.

Rin would never admit that he was instantly both protective, and jealous.

"I tried to put him to…use."

Especially after Nerine said that, looking away from Rin back to her soap attendant, her tone more solemn than ashamed.

"I was so nervous, and he made me less nervous…which made me more nervous, if that makes any sense."

A flash of Nerine's normal shy self sparked a natural gas pocket in Rin's bubble.

"Actually it kinda does."

Nerine smiled sweetly at him, but before Rin could return the sentiment it melted, then inverted. Yet, this time the expression that preceded her horns drove them away and deadened the light in her eyes. The Neri-nymph moved toward Nerine more like a pet than a puppet, putting a consoling hand on her knee.

"I tried to use him, he used me more, so I used him up."

Rin flinched as Nerine picked up a bathing bucket (which looked more like a fancy ice bucket in its western context) and dumped it over the rainbowman. It dissolved, died, so quickly, so pitifully, that only the realization that a radiant Devil princess was wearing nothing but soapsuds could have brought him back to the present.

"As already finished as I was, something inside me…woke up, and I -I mocked him. I laughed at him like-like some kind of evil queen. All that desire, all that pleasure, abandoned and violent. I knew who I was, what would happen, what I wanted to happen, what I had to _make_ happen…and what would never happen."

The omni-colored oil slick, now dissipating across the surface of the bath, recaptured Rin's attention, then passed it up and over Nerine's head to the Sun, touching down beautifully over…

"This isn't an illusion, is it?"

Rin's reflexive, deadened observation canceled out one numbness with another, letting the panic in. He tried to stand up from every angle at once, so he didn't rise, or fall, very far.

"Where the hell are we?"

"At the core…or rather, at the pit."

Rin let his eyes lift him this time, over Nerine and past the jungles to a sunset that had spread itself like a broken yolk of dancing flame.

"_The Lemon star…_" Rin's mind whispered over his lips. The new insanity of his position made him feel strong enough to collapse, but not to move.

"I can do anything here."

Nerine swung her legs forward, white glisten, white hot, white foam spreading out as she lowered them into the bath.

"_We_ can do anything."

The towel slipped from her hair, the soap spread from her body as she swam toward him. Smooth as a crocodile, her ears like shark fins, her lips targeted him like a warhead, dipping in and out of the ripples.

Rin didn't know what to do, but he did know what would happen. They were both naked, and as less and less water separated them he became more and more ready for what she clearly wanted to do when she reached him. He knew what would happen.

He would strike her. He had felt ill any time he'd even imagined hitting a girl, but this was the last card he had. He didn't know if it would bring things back under control, but he knew there was no way he could hit himself hard enough to even distract his own desire.

Nerine reached him and stood, entirely naked, more than perfect, more than real. Rin let his face be as thoughtless as it wanted, he had to put everything into his hand.

The slap echoed off the many shining and shimmering surfaces like a grand execution. The pain of it was actually enough to topple the tower beneath the water. Rin would have been relieved to have his blood focused in other areas if one of those areas hadn't been the inside of his cheek, cut against his teeth.

"But you won't do anything."

The word 'anything' had gone to Heaven and Hell completely through Nerine's voice. Rin touched the pain on his face, looked at the blood on his hand, remembered how she had so recently healed an almost identically wound, remembered everything the day had brought him, everything he had returned to it.

Everything he had done?

He _could_ have done anything.

"I hate that look," Nerine glared at him with almost the same terrifying power that had first emerged from the veil, save that a single tear made it, impossibly, even more agonizing.

Rin looked at his hand, as if the answer, the mirror, were in his blood. He then looked back at Nerine with what he knew was the same look, impossibly, made worse by staying the same.

"That look says the _you_ are unworthy. That _you_ can't let yourself take advantage of us. We open our souls to you and all you can give us is _fear_? Have you considered how that might _insult_ us? We offer ourselves to you and all you can take is _guilt_?"

Nerine turned and walked back toward the other end of the bath. Her long, wet hair against her bare back, above her…Rin's desire was solid steel again, but enflamed by the truth that Asa had sparked, that Nerine had spread.

"As I was saying, about Mayumi's incubus, I tried not to pretend it was you. When I mastered it, I tried harder, but I failed."

The bitterness in Nerine's voice made Rin's stomach knot and his hands clench, raging in every direction.

"It was then that I sought a vision, not that I needed it. Even if we forget all of today by tomorrow I know that…that we'll never be together."

Nerine reached the other end of the bath and the Neri-nymph had taken her into its arms. They seemed to comfort each other equally. To Rin's surprise the Neri-nymph spoke. To his disbelief, it seemed to speak of its own will.

"It doesn't matter what you think, or even what you feel, only what you _want_ can make a now. Only what you want can make a memory because only what you want can be had. Only what you want can be an action rather than a re-action."

Was it more than a puppet? Rin balked at the idea.

"I can complete the spell," Nerine guessed, easily, at his question, "I can make her real, Rin…and you can use her. You can do everything you won't let yourself do to any of us, to all of us."

Rin felt the knots in his body release, but the stiffness in his flesh return. With a caress of its cheek, Nerine had given the nymph a face identical to her own.

"Maybe, if you try hard enough, true enough, you and she can release us all from the Lemon star."

The Neri-nymph began to walk toward him, flesh spreading now from her face, over her neck, down and down, replacing the water.

Energy, his own, returned to him. Strength. Lust. Rin rose to his knees, barely keeping his arousal beneath the water. This would be okay, this wouldn't be-

"No."

Rin felt the steel that had cauterized over his throat now pierce through his chest. The choice had come and the choice had been true. He didn't know if it was Afraid or Right, only that it stopped the Neri-nymph in its tracks and brought fresh tears to Nerine's face.

"I can't, Nerine. I can't do this anymore. This…fooling around has got to stop. I know I'm a coward. I know I'm…I know I'm hurting everyone, but I don't want any consolation prize, for me or for anyone else."

Rin waited to break somewhere, melting or crumbling away, but he didn't. There was still something hard in his chest, so he clutched it and, even as it burned, even as it screamed, he spat it out.

"I want something real!"

He waited for Nerine to lift her head, but she only lifted her voice, softer now than ever he'd heard from anyone, even before today.

"I know."

The Neri-nymph turned back into water with a splash that shook Rin out of so much seriousness that he seriously almost fainted. Nerine, on the other hand, looked up at him with the eyes that had matched the horns, her hair began to dance. Again, even though the temperature only seemed to increase a little, the steam swirled with a life of its own, now more like a raging fire than a soothing pool.

"That's why I love you so much, Rin. I know the strongest part of you is a kindness that outshines any fear, any selfishness, but that's why I can't let you blame yourself if I fail. If the Lemon star takes me, I want you to know that it wasn't your fault, that you don't have to hurt yourself for anyone's sake."

Rin noticed that the water was low enough for his (somewhat uncertain, but certainly somewhat) aroused state to show. It got even lower.

The water, that is.

"That is why I want you to tell everyone, my father, Sia…Asa, what happened here. I want you to look at the worst part of me and hate me if you have to. I want you never to run from your desires again. I want you never to cower before them, either."

The steam was everywhere now, the water receding like someone had pulled a giant plug. Rin shouted for Nerine, all too willing to believe that _she_ was the one in peril. From the cloud, thick as stone for one moment, then lifted with less substance than a thought, Nerine's voice rained down.

"Now look upon me, and despair."

The bath had emptied, spread entirely across the windows like a mocking gesture of privacy. There, beyond every veil, was Nerine, seated, straddled, enthroned atop half a dozen water shadows, not of herself, but of her love. Easy as it might have been to see them as generic, stock male bodies, even Rin couldn't miss this details, more his own than the amorphous, naked reflection of himself on the floor, the length of which was all that separated him from this new All.

Three of them, on their hands and knees, made a base, two above those made a pedestal. Atop those was another, posing like a regal stallion…no, like a _roaring lion_, barely tamed between the naked thighs of Nerine. With one hand she held the back of his head up, his neck out, his mouth open. With the other she raised a large chalice so radiant Rin couldn't say if it was gold, silver, or ruby. Before Rin could conceive of it as a flag, a sword, or the still beating heart of life itself, she tipped it, drenching herself in a broth of glass, white sand and pearls. It cascaded down her naked body. It bled thickly over her hips onto the backs of one Rin after another, transmutating their water flesh into even more perfect molds of him, carved not from marble, but from what looked like a thick swirl of fog and ice.

Nerine's mount descended in a slow spiral across the backs of her attendants. When it reached the floor, two took the chalice from her and two lifted her by the arms, all with a precise and dedicated reverence mixed with a violent tension. The lion, now unfettered, stalked directly toward Rin, Rin who knew only his heart and his flesh, throbbing, holding him in place as it flanked him. He felt its breath as it stood, then sat behind him on some invisible armchair, the shape of which Rin only knew when two carrying the chalice carried it toward him. Their right hands at its base, their left hands on his shoulders, they pushed him effortlessly into the prison throne of himself.

They bent their mouths to his ears, speaking a single word each, burning rather than bubbling with so much lust that it _couldn't_ be his voice, or anyone else's but his.

"_Sit._"

"_Watch._"

Five now returned to their mistress, presenting themselves, their swords, to her above all.

Five now descended upon their whore.

Rin sat, aghast and enthralled, as they ravished her. Dots of pure blackness blinked out from their mouths as they opened and closed upon her, a carnage of obscenities. Nerine bent and stretched into them, moaning, gasping, impaling Rin with glances over their shoulders, over her shoulders.

They filled each of her hands, her lips, each howling and gnashing apex of her thighs. They made a ritual compasses around her, fondling themselves at eacg corner as one dominated and poured himself into her flesh. Her mouth whined and cried out with the rhythmic ripples of her breasts. Rin watched, God and Devil Himself, pitifully omnipotent in his unblinking, raptured, revulsion. The distance between him and the still morphing, churning dance, stretched the length and breadth of the universe.

As did Nerine, profaned and exalted, beneath and beyond him.

Lust as Power. Rin's recent erotic experiences cried out like children murdered before their father. He was drunk on this, depraved to every depth she descended with her perfect, unnatural, supernatural, POST-natural! body, her _body_, eyes lashing into him like a whip every bit as merciless as the swords plunging into every part of her.

Lust as Madness. Rin clutched the soldier slave he sat in, first by the hand, then by the fist. He would grasp this, scream and submit and come triumphant to the other side of this. He wrapped one hand of its colorless white-hot Life around him. That hand, now beneath his own, he pulled and pounded and would somehow, NOW, posses Nerine deeper than any of them.

And it came. The despair.

Rin was not his desire, _or_ his fear alone, but he was alone, alone so long as the flesh used for his pleasure was only fantasy.

Rin was not his desire, _or_ his fear alone. He would not be alone.

"I don't want this," he muttered, almost muted. He stood, almost fell.

"I want…"

The Rins did not slow their self-sacrifice, their assault, but when Nerine met his eyes this time, he caught, and held her there. Lust was Anger. Lust was Strength. Strength was Compassion. Lust could be Empathy.

"I want…"

Nerine took her mouth from her slaves and mouthed the name on her heart.

"_I want something REAL!_"

Rin yelled, not frantic or desperate, but defiant and True.

The mist upon the glass walls melted, wept, as the sun outside set.

_ ELSEWHERE! (WHERE ELSE?)_

The lot was clean, almost pristine, just soft flat dirt where the grand estate had been.

"Ok…tell me again who we're looking for why we're we looking for him where Nerine's house used to be?"

Itsuki let his indignant hands fall from his hips and his head collapse to one side.

"And why…and where…is Nerine's-"

Mayumi pushed past him, then promptly showed him how the completely befuddled pose was done.

"What the-"

"Mayumi? Itsuki? What are you two doing here?"

Kaede blinked rapidly at the first clue she, Sia, and the two kings draped over Primula's shoulders, could find at the scene of the disappearance. Everyone exchanged quick, frantic looks between the lot and each other till their necks were sore and their eyes were dry.

"Uh, hi ladies, my, uh, Mayumi said she wanted me to meet someone, but that this someone might have gotten lost or kidnapped or-"

"Rin's been kidnapped?"

Sia pushed forward and grabbed Itsuki by the collar.

"You kids ALL need a nap," Eustoma slurred then cackled over Primula's shoulder. The designated drunken despot dragger (DDDD's were usually taller and more formally dressed) just wrinkled her nose.

"Rin will be fine," Forbesii lifted his head wearily, "even if my Nerine were to-"

Everyone was looking at the Devil king now, making doubly sure he saw what they did.

"Oh dear."

His helpless response, though not quite as aloof as they expected it to be, helped them get however hysterical they needed to be.

"You don't know where your house is either?" Sia hollered.

"Did my incubus s-s-suck up your whole house?" Mayumi stuttered.

"Your what?" Itsuki turned. White, then pink.

"You said you wanted to meet him. I figured you wanted to…you know." Mayumi looked at her two index fingers tented together.

"Meet who? Kaede what're they talking about?" Sia almost cried.

"I d-don't…but where's Rin?"

"Rin? But if he's here, then Nerine…" Mayumi turned. Pink, then white.

"Nerine? What has she done to Rin?" Sia took a step toward Forbesii, fists at her side, heart at her throat.

"You mean…then Nerine, too…with us-" Itsuki balked like a kitten, then a grinned like a fox.

"Quiet manservant." Mayumi relaxed, then collected herself.

"Mayumi? Did you just call Itsuki-" Sia turned. Disbelieving, then deeply interested.

"Everybody QUIET!"

Kaede's outburst worked faster and more thoroughly than expected. She shivered at all their surprised, then expectant faces. She only clutched her hands beneath her chin, sobbing at them.

"Somebody just tell me where Rin is. I don't care about…about anything else, just please-"

"Rin?"

Everyone swung their head away from Kaede toward the newly arrived Asa who, for her part, looked just as helpless after grabbing their attention with a whisper instead of a bellow.

"You too?" Sia hollered.

"I…found the book I thought I gave him to give to Nerine, so I worried he might have-"

"Mayumi, if Asa is going to be in on this too, we're definitely going to need help from your incubation, or whatever."

"Incu-bus, Itsuki, he's an Incubus, and he won't be able to help anyone if Nerine sucked him, her house, AND Rin back into the Devil world."

"They're not in the Devil world, I'd know…I think."

Forbesii shook his head weakly and went even more limp over his DDDD. Primula raised an eyebrow and began to frown, but lifted her head toward the sky as the sunset went from orange, to pink, to purple in an unnaturally accelerated procession. Everyone else's frantic return to chaotic questioning rose up again, and dissolved again in their own time till they caught up with Demon-little's airy observation.

"The sky is falling."

A swirling flash, like a simultaneous ex- oh!- and im-plosion of lightning and shooting stars dotted the suddenly darkened sky like a second moon. It made a noise exactly like a collision of male and female cries of ecstasy trying very hard to sound like thunder.

"Eustoma?"

"Yes, ma'boy?"

"Is that my house plummeting towards us?"

"It certainly is."

"Should we put up a shield?"

"I suppose so."

"Dummies," Primula mentioned to them, everyone, and anyone who might have heard her amid their own screams.

A few of the neighbors actually had enough strength left to awaken when the tremendous crash shook through their community. Some even had enough to grumble about the noise before going back to sleep in and around their beds and bedmates.

Much like the last moments of the grace it had fallen from, the mansion had not completely collapsed, or completely exploded. The creaking sounds it emitted were dangerous and foreboding, but nothing compared to a chorus of perfect sync and monstrous projection.

"RIN!"

"Rin? What about Ne-Rin-HEY!"

Primula dropped Forbesii into the ground, Eustoma landing next to him. She chased after the others, all scrambling for who would be the first to bring the fallen house falling down.

The front door swung open and a few bits of the house crumbled around it. There, soaking wet, wild-eyed, panting, and clutching a towel around his waist, was Rin. He clenched his eyes as if fighting back a migraine and stumbled forward, left, right, and into Kaede. She barely managed to catch him, but didn't even come close to catching his towel as he wrapped his arms around her. Her blush, following the theme of the evening, swallowed her entire face before shrinking to two tiny but very intense dots. Her eyes followed suit when Rin leaned back to look at her.

"Kaede…I'm so glad to see you."

The door swung open a little further and off one of its hinges. There, soaking wet, wild-eyed, panting, and clutching a towel around his waist, was Rin. Asa was no less petrified than anyone else, but she was in the stumbling path of this next arrival, who collapsed to his knees in front of her.

"Asa…I'm sorry. I should have-"

He hugged her legs, all but nuzzling her pelvis. Asa reaction only shock-shook a little more than those around her (save Kaede, who was hugging Rin, burying her face in his shoulder). Timidly, then with a kind of blissful calm that did not match the mischievous smile on her face, she began to stroke his hair.

The door swung open a little further and entirely off its hinges. There, soaking wet, wild-eyed, panting, and clutching a towel around his waist, was Rin. He took a few steps and-

"Rin! Tell me you're real!"

Sia, not taking any chances, threw her arms around this third chime was the charm.

"Sia, I-" he gasped, then exploded in a cloud of steam, slightly sticky steam.

"Careful, Sia, they're one size fits all, but only good for one ride."

Nerine voice was her own, if wry for the first time. Shocking as her entrance was, it was only the cherry on top of the Rin sundae (his head covered in suds rather than whipped cream) she was dragging. He had one arm over her shoulder, both shins on the ground, and his head lolling about where neck bones should have been. Though their bathrobes were thick and closed snugly, everyone, Rins included, looking at them like a scandalous vaudeville act.

Maybe it was because they'd heard Nerine mumble through an inflated smile 'I probably could have made them more substantial if certain people had left me more material to work with.'

"Wha-what's going on?" Kaede's grip (on her Rin and a growing list of things) loosened.

"Nerine, did you-" Asa began, trading glances between the Devil and her details.

"And where's my Incubus? Hell, forget that, where's _my_ Rin?" Mayumi took an indignant step forward.

"Yeah, where's our Rin," Itsuki followed suit, then stepped back with a blush of his own, "I mean-"

"Rins!" Primula exclaimed happily, pushing past the ménage a duo at the two new Tsuchimi heirs that stumbled out from behind the Devil heiress. She wrapped a tiny arm around each of their wastes, which held their towels up, a small favor lost like too many puns on too many Rins.

"Holy-" began the two Rins on either side of Primula.

"-fucking-" continued the Rins turning from Kaede and Asa.

"Hell." ended The Rin, ended like the world with a whimper as he raised his head under Nerine's special brand of care.

"Nerine," Forbesii chocked, struggling to his feet, teary wide-eyed with fatherly affection, "you've made your daddy so proud."

"She's made more than that," Eustoma muttered in a dumbfounded awe equal and opposite to his ally, "to think that even under the Lemon star she could-"

"Um…about that."

Everyone instantly looked from Rin, Rins, and each other to Nerine's meek interjection. The exception being Sia, who scooted toward Primula and claimed half of her entourage, mumbling something about little girls needing to learn to share.

"That star," Rin chuckled helplessly to himself, "I'm so sick of stars. I swear I'm going to move to the city where I can't see them."

"Actually Rin," Nerine spoke more clearly, if again with the more typical shyness, bracing her charge against the sturdier-looking half of the doorway "I think we…the star that is-"

"Spit it out!" Sia and the Rin she'd converted yelled as one, then looked at each other in shock at how…mirrored they seemed. Then they smiled. Then their smiles grew. Then their smiles grew closer together.

"I think we made lemonade."

Nerine managed a kind of half smile-half shrug to sweeten her observation.

Even if no one believed him about any other part of his story, about the wingless flights, terrifying ecstasies, or sublime revelations, Rin made damn sure everyone believed him when he said:

'I don't know anything about mass empathy or being in turn with the universe, but I can say for certain, when Nerine said that, everyone, _everyone_…seemed ready to fall face first into the ground.'

"What do you mean?" Eustoma asked a little sternly, a lot anxiously.

"What's a Lemon Star?" Kaede, Primula, and their Rins echoed in a perfect cube.

"All of us wanting to…wanting Rin, and him, the real him, they way he feels about us, any of us, all of us-"

Nerine, speaking with less and less confidence, was convincing the original Rin more and more that she was right when she finally said:

"I think having more of him in the world, more to want and more to not have… must have just…overloaded it."

"But is this," Asa began, kneeling down and cradling her Rin's face in her hands, "is this really Rin?"

"Of course I-" her Rin's voice seemed to escape him. He chased it from the face of one Rin to another to another, retreating back farther into himself.

A melancholy, yet somehow accomplished sentiment washed over Nerine.

"They have his memories, his heart, but like I said, they probably can only," Nerine looked down, blushing, "_love_ us…just once."

Rin, the original, managed to stand. Head down, he crossed his arms, hugged himself, and gripped the belt on his bathrobe.

"That…"

"…wouldn't be..." another Rin continued.

"…the Right Thing to Do." another Rin finished.

One by one the Rins stood, looking sincerely and lovingly into the eyes of their respective suitors.

"I know that, if I were to…" The Rin in the doorway looked at each of them, and at himself.

"…love any of you…" another Rin continued

"…I wouldn't ever want it to be a one time thing."

One by one the Rins turned toward the original. The original turned red, worried, breathless. He hung his head, chuckled, then laughed heartily, throwing his head back in a way that Eustoma naturally took as the sincerest form of flattery.

"Tsuchimi love squad!" He commanded.

"Sir!" They answered as one, standing at attention, saluting, and dropping their towels.

"For-ward! March!"

The four avatars obeyed, following their origin back into Hell.

"What the-" Mayumi exclaimed, her mouth gapping, then closing with an audible click and a knowing grin, "well that figures. All the good men are taken…_with themselves_."

Sia and Kaede looked at her, oblivious. Asa blinked, blushed, and giggled.

"I'm sorry I couldn't…" Nerine looked at her nervous hands, "make more than five."

The receding footsteps of Rins stopped, then resumed as a naked Rin crawled on his hands and knees under Nerine's robe like a mischievous boy sneaking a peak under the velvet curtain before a show. He jogged into the house and the marching footsteps continued, stopping with the sound of a door slamming, but staying on its hinges.

"Um…I mean _six_." Nerine blushed deeper and smiled nervously, scratching the back of her head.

Everyone looked at her with a dozen brands of disbelief. Then, as one, they turned their heads to Itsuki, who shrugged with his hands out, but otherwise mimicked Nerine perfectly.

"So…I guess it's up to me to make orgy porgy then."

Primula tilted her head curiously.

"Porridge? Isn't that a breakfast food? Like cream of wheat?"

Kaede blinked to attention and a mortified new blush.

"Well it's kind of a cream of-" Itsuki managed as wide a grin as he could, as if knowing it would be dislodged when Mayumi slapped him upside the head.

"Rin's taking the final countdown on that point," she grumbled, crossing her arms, but eventually smiling.

"Oh." Sia deflated, looking back toward the mansion, eventually smiling and shaking her head with a silent chuckle.

"Oh my." Kaede caught up, put a hand to her mouth, looked down at it, then smiled behind it.

A few minutes spent exchanging a variety unfamiliar, unknowing, though not entirely uncomfortable looks, and the remaining friends settled on encouraging smiles.

Nerine and Sia shared glances back and forth between a still slightly confused-looking Primula and approached her together.

"I know this must all be very confusing to you, Primula." Nerine bent to the smaller girls height.

"We can explain more when you're older, but sometimes people have-" Sia picked up, then dropped off.

"There are parts people have to deal with alone…or, in private at least …other parts of themselves." Nerine said, almost serene following an encouraging smile from Sia.

"Some people more than others," Sia finished.

The princesses looked at each other, basking in a new glow of understanding and affection.

Primula, brow leveled and mouth small, turned away with the first exasperated sigh they'd ever heard her make.

"Go fuck yourselves."

The two girls just stared, mouths agape, as Primula ran up to Kaede's side.

"Kaede. Is it time to make dinner now?"

Her sunny matron just stared at the mansion.

"Yes, Rin will probably be hungry when he's done…doing…when he's done-"

"Alright! I'm done!"

Rin appeared in the doorway, alone but with his bathrobe opened confidently across his chest, shoulders spread as if he had…an army…behind him?

As if he had conquered himself, that most daunting of enemies?

No. For lack of a better phrase, Rin appeared in the doorway looking blissfully gang-banged by himself.

He walked toward the uneven grouping, each girl opening her mouth to say something as he walked past.

But he just walked past.

Then, first nodding in a friendly way to Mayumi, he addressed her four-eyed sideman.

"C'mon Itsuki, let's go play video games."

Itsuki tilted his head for a moment, blushed, smiled, then did both till he was all laughs, till they both were.

"Ok…but no Mr. Bomb Bomb."

Rin leveled his gaze, suddenly serious. "Deal."

"Lu-cky." Itsuki held up the two fingers for victory.

Mayumi watched, slumped in disbelief, half-fake half-sobbing to herself.

"So much for a seller's market."

"No need to worry, boyish goddess." Eustoma clasped an encouraging hand on her right shoulder.

"Chin up, handsome devil." Forbesii wrapped an arm around her left.

"There're plenty of birds in the bush, plenty of koi in the pond."

"Plenty of ducks and plenty of swans."

The streetlights came on, casting the shadows of two youths in one night. Their conversation was too far away to hear, but Rin laughed in what was obviously a jeer. Itsuki slugged him in the shoulder. Rin kicked at Itsuki, who ran, then ran back. Rin got him in a headlock, and kept him there.


End file.
